


What is more precious than survival?

by Typo66



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Angst, But still Thorin, Crossover, Gore, Istanbul, M/M, Sort of happy ending, Thorin is actually grownup Carl, Unexplained mash-up, catharsis guaranteed, depends on definition of happy ending, depictions of violence, not for the faint hearted, off screen non-con, walking dead - Freeform, who doesn't love hobbits, zombies duh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-12
Updated: 2013-07-29
Packaged: 2017-12-19 07:24:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 13
Words: 33,860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/881037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Typo66/pseuds/Typo66
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thorin is basically how I imagine Carl would grow up to be in the Walking Dead verse. But he's still Thorin Oakenshield the dwarf. He finds what is possibly the last remaining hobbit, 50 years after the outbreak. He is badass, Bilbo is hope.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Please read with caution. I have written some stuff that would even squick me out. But its a cruel world out there and a kid growing up in it can not have much compassion. People do terrible things in bad situations. Everyones psyche is shaken.  
> There s maybe even more violence in this than in the show Walking Dead. Because it takes place in the future, where people have completely given up on giving fucks one way or the other.
> 
> There is mentions of rape, not detailed but intense enough, in my opinion. 
> 
> Then there's the matter of rotting corpses walking around, and our guys need to kill them. Sometimes it gets messy.
> 
> There are mentions of some familiar characters deaths. 
> 
>  
> 
> \--
> 
> Uh.. And this is unbetaed. Also English is not my native language. So corrections are very welcome.
> 
> \--
> 
> You don't need to have watched Walking Dead to be able to follow the story. Things just happen in that universe, other than that there s not much of a connection to the show. Your everyday zombie apocalypse. Other than that, if you've watched the show, you ll catch the tiny references.
> 
> \--
> 
> I know not many people will choose to read this, I'm mostly writing for myself. I just wanted to see how Carl would be if he grew up. I put it in a story arch and let it go.

Thorin easily navigated his way around the rubble, his axe already in his hand. Buildings around him had started to vanish under green growth but not this area. Not around these bent gates and traps. Pigeons took to flight when he pushed a massive gate made of iron bars and it came free of its hinges to clang onto the stone floor with a deafening roar. Thorin froze and waited to see if the sound would draw walkers. None came forth. “Yet.” Thorin thought.

Heavy iron gates, clear of growth, meant this had been a settlement until recently. He stepped in to the courtyard carefully and spotted the first body of an elf, crumpled next to the high walls circling the well tended garden. The elf had no head wounds, just a chunk of his throat missing.

Thorin sighed. He had found the elf settlement in Beyoglu. Only, it was no more. Overrun, and by the looks of it, overrun by walkers. Not by men. He wondered how the walkers could have managed to get past these gates and traps. He knew, remembered very well from the farm, how overwhelming walkers in a crowd could be. And Istanbul had been a big city. Population of 16 million right before the outbreak. Through his travels across Europe he had heard of the elf settlement in Istanbul. Big city meant lots of walkers, but it also meant rich resources, supplies, many hospitals. Many malls. Which meant raised chance of left over clothes, bullets, arrows, ducktape, rope, blades and even the occasional full battery. So despite the warnings he had recieved he had made his way into İstanbul. The most dangerous and the richest capital of Europe. If he had to leave here, next choice would be Moscow but Thorin would rather avoid the cold.

Thorin studied the structure of the gates, the scratches on the walls. When he looked up he could see the garden was dotted with elven corpses.  It had been a massacre but he could see no sign of a raging crowd of walkers. Trampled grass yes, but not enough to indicate a crowd big enough to bring down iron bars. And he had heard this elven settlement survivi ng for a long time. The cause must have been inside drama. “Ni ikrit fund.” he muttered then decisively walked to elven corpse near the gate and split its skull with his axe.

The inside was no better. Most of the fabric, drapes, rugs, couches were soaked in blood. There were piles of bodies in various rooms and corridors. The building was big. He hadn’t bothered to read the sign on the gates because it had been in Turkish. Didn’t matter anyway. Thorin just bet there was a big cache of food somewhere. He just needed to be quick about finding it. He could crush the skulls of only so many corpses before they reanimated. And there were simply too many in here. Too big a place to camp out for a single dwarf. Too hard to secure by himself. He would search fast, take what he could carry and then maybe come back tomorrow to see if packs of Men had raided it.

He made his way around corridors, and just as he had made his way down a flight of stairs he heard the scraping sound of a walker getting to its feet.  It was no big deal, he made short work of it and pressed on into the darkness of the cellar.

Walkers were like flies. They either gathered around sound or light. So Thorin generally used his matches frugally. But this was worth it. He had already gone deep enough into the building that no rays of the early evening sun could reach. And if the corpses in the halls woke up, he would have trouble making his way out.

He couldn’t really leave the idea of a rich meal for the next week or so, so he would have to light a match to make his search faster. After his third match and slicing the heads off of two more walkers he found the doors. It was even better than he had expected. Solid metal doors of a walk in freezer. He hastily grabbed a bench and dragged it to the doors, opened them then wedged the bench to prevent it from closing on him while he was inside.

The inside was heaven. Frozen meats of all sorts. Packed beans, greens and fruit. Even cheese! Thorin felt a spark of anger at this. Settlement big enough to generate its own elctricity, have refregiration, and farm animals to cut up and freeze. How long had they lived here like this? Self sufficient and in comfort. No doubt putting arrows between the eyes of anyone who dared approach their peacefull little community.  Or maybe even hunted the ones that learned about it. But the word had got out.

Thoring snorted, more than just the word had got out from the looks of this place now. He opened his back pack and started to haphazardly throw in whatever he thought he could keep. Salted meats, he could keep without refregiration and thanks to Turks love of all sorts of spiced meat there was a lot of it. He threw in fruits but not enough to take up space that Thorin needed for cheese. He had missed cheese. How long had it been since he had eaten any? Or any sort of dairy product for that matter. He knew the cheese would spoil sooner than even some of the spiced meats but he didn’t care. He bit off a huge chunk from a block and moaned, then pushed an unsoiled block into the bag.

He was in the process of weighing rice against flour, debating which to pick,when he heard a scraping sound once more. He stilled immediately, had he taken too long? He quickly calculated possible defence scenarios and concluded that his best bet would be to barricade the kitchen doors, clear the walkers inside and maybe he could spend a few days in here, cuddling up to this feast while he waited for enough of the walkers to wander off till he could fight his way back up.

He dropped his bag and grabbing his axe and sword walked out of the dark freezer. No walkers in sight. But just as he was getting ready to light another match he heard the sound again. A sob this time, followed by some muttered words. It stopped Thorin dead in his tracks. Walkers were one thing, they were dumb and slow. And they did  not speak.  Words meant greater danger. Had some of the elves survived? Were they armed?

“Show yourself!” He demanded into the darkness in a low and hard voice.  “I heard you!” None of the shadows moved, but he heard the sound of scraping once more. Surprisingly it came from the direction of the freezer.

Holding his axe raised and his sword in front of him, Thorin stepped back in. He carefully walked in the direction of the sound and he knew he had gotten closer when he heard a muffled sob. Someone had been hiding in the freezer, most likely to die of suffocation in a few days if Thorin hadn’t opened the doors. Serves them right for being a coward, Thorin thought. But of course no better could be expected of elves.

“Hiding when your people got ripped apart outside.” He said into the dark corner full of boxes but he stopped. He didn’t care who it was or why they were there or if they would die here. Some snivelling coward of an elf wouldn’t be able to stop Thorin from taking the food and leaving. He walked back to his bag and shouldered it. It had gotten heavy, stretching the stiches but Thorin didn’t mind the weight. “You’re gonna die here anyway.” He muttered and walked out the freezer door.

The greatest kindness he could do to whoever was hiding inside was to shut and lock the freezer doors. Let them suffocate rather than getting ripped apart by their fellow elves in a couple of hours. He moved the bench he had wedged in to keep the doors open and started pulling the doors shut.

“Wa-wait! Wait! Please!”

There was a scuffling sound, a few boxes moved and Thorin pulled open the door to better be able to see inside. A dark figure emerged from between the boxes, shakey on its feet. It was a small figure with disproportionatly big looking feet. His sword hand going slack, Thorin blinked.


	2. Chapter 2

“GO!” His father was yelling into Thorin’s face, his remaining eye glinted with panic in the light of the firebehind him, which was consuming everthing they had built in the last year. Thrain bent down to push Thorin firmly towards the woods. “Go Thorin! Now!”

“But I can help!” Thorin yelled back at him. Rosa was in his arms, squirming and crying. Even the 10 month old baby was too big for Thorin’s small arms. At this rate even if they hid in the woods walkers would be upon around them in a matter of seconds. 

“You are helping.” Thrain said, than grabbed Thorin firmly by the shoulders “I know what you can do Thorin. You are a brave boy. But right now you need to help Rosa. She needs you.”

Thorin looked anxiously between the baby in his arms, his father and the sounds of gun fire emanating from the direction of the fire. Someone started screaming in pain. Thorin couldn’t tell if it was someone of their own or one of the attackers.

“I have to go.” Thrain said. Then pulled Thorin to him and pressed a firm kiss on his forehead. “I’ll meet you in Utrecht.” He said but his voice was low, sad. Resigned. Thorin knew in that moment that his father was lying.

“I’ll take care of her.” Thorin promised his father.

“I love you.” Thrain promised him back.

Thorin turned and ran into the woods with a hand muffling Rosa’s cries. He didn’t have his hands free to muffle his own. So he ran. From his father, from the screams of their friends. Into the darkness of the woods. Utrecht was to the East. He needed to move East.

\--

Next morning Dain’s men went out to investigate a group of walkers gathered around an abandoned bus outside their camp. They put the distracted walkers down with ease and found a 10 year old dwarf boy and a hobbit baby locked inside. The boy had passed out clutching the baby who had cried herself hoarse.   
\--

 

A hobbit baby had been found and miraculously carried alive to Dain’s door by a dwarf boy who didn’t look old enough to tie his own shoe laces. It had almost been a year since anyone had seen a hobbit even. They never told the gruesome stories to Thorin of course. But he had heard. He had seen, when he had been travelling with his father. When they had rescued Rosa’s mom from a farm house in a little hobbit village in Belgium, she had been the last one to survive. Heavily pregnant as she was, her family had worked hardest to hide and save her. Not that it meant much. Hobbits, being the peaceful, fun loving creatures they were, had been quick to die in the claws and teeth of the walkers. They had no weapons, no guns like men, no bows like elves, no blades like dwarves. When the outbreak had reached hobbit towns they had died by the dozens. There was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. There was only the constant fight and hobbits didn’t fight. They never even had the time to learn. Thorin had seen the bodies no matter how hard Thrain had tried to shield Thorin. 

Those days Thrain was different too. Thorin supposed he, himself had been different. They used to be happy when they met survivors. They had tried to help new people, work together, form a thight knit group. But then they had started to die. Thorin had learned to do what he needed to do, to keep his own people safe. Thrain at first had tried to stop him, as well as Thorin’s mother. Mahal how had she objected when Thror had offered to teach her 9 year old son how to use a gun. Then his mother had died. Then Rosa’s mom. Then one by one, people in their group. Thorin had become a good shot in short order, to stop the deaths. And one day when Thorin shot a Man boy five years older than him between the eyes, in order to keep their group safe, Thrain had given him that look. Dissapointment? Resignation? Then he had said,

“Thorin, I get why you did that and by Mahal I wish you hadn’t had to. But son, we are dwarves and don’t ever forget that there are precious things in life. Sometimes even more precious than survival, that makes us who we are.”

At the time Thorin had thought he understood what his father meant. He didn’t remember what that Thrain had meant anymore. Now he just knew others were dangerous, walker or not, and he needed to keep Rosa safe.

Rosa quickly became a favourite amongst the dwarves in Dain’s camp. She was impossibly tiny and cute like a button, a new hope to the small group, all those battle hardened dwarves smiled and cooed when she tugged on their beards and fell over eachother to bring her formula, toys, clean clothes and whatever they could find. 

Thorin didn’t like it. He never much spoke with Dain’s men. He fed her, cleaned her, when he couldn’t manage and Rosa got sick, he stood by her crib until he fell asleep on his feet and they had to carry him too. He never let anyone touch her without avidly watching. He didn’t trust these dwarves. He waited for his father.

Thrain never came.

\--

The year Thorin turned 23, Rosa and him had made their way into Croatia. First Dain’s camp had gotten overrun. Thorin had grabbed Rosa and had never looked back. Then from various stragglers they had heard of an elvish settlement in Munich. They had moved alone, just the two of them, walking, hiding, getting help from the occasional group, avoiding a lot of close calls. Munich had turned out to be a pipe dream. They hadn’t even managed to get close to the settlement to ask for help. Thorin had learned how to check for booby traps in Munich. There had been a lot of them. 

They kept moving East. On the road Thorin learned how to jump start a car from an old Man, how to siphon gas, how to hunt from a Man woman. He learned how to better use a sword, how to fletch arrows, how to tell medicine apart depending on illness. He even learned how to hang tents from trees from an Elf. He avoided that last one whenever possible. 

But Thorin never stayed in one place for long, he never let Rosa get too close with which ever group they ran into. They could only trust eachother and that was that.   
They had heard of a dwarven camp, deep underground in Zagreb. Thorin thought maybe that could be a good place for Rosa. Safe. Until she was older. Rosa had learned how to read and how to use a gun, she was fluent in Khuzdul and Westron. But Thorin remembered it was important to learn history, math, geography.. There were no schools. Still Thorin wanted Rosa to learn what the world had been like, before. And he couldn’t teach her any of that. But the dwarven settlement in Zagreb could be good for her, he thought. It sounded good from various accounts he had gotten. Nothing specific, just rumors. Thorin had felt it’d be worth checking out. And if not, he could always grab Rosa and get out of there.

When they found the place Rosa had been ecstatic. Settlements meant finery to her. Finery which looked paltry to Thorin but in the world that Rosa had been born to, a cheap figurine of an elvish balet dancer was worth more than gold. She liked those, little ceramic figurines, colorful clothes, delicate roses, and she had absolutely fallen in love with a litter of new born kittens. 

To Thorin these meant nothing. In the Zagreb settlement they never had to go hungry or sleep hanging from a tree, they never got cold or sick. There was an inner circle which had a few lady dwarves, Thorin was glad to see. They were mostly old. No one close to Rosa’s age but Thorin had found out that a young girl sometimes needed help and mentoring of a woman. Rosa was going through adolescence and some of the problems she had, had left Thorin stumped. Outer circle was mostly occupied with rough and tumble men, warriors. They kept the settlement safe, they had weapons, and they kept constant watch. 

Thorin spent most of his time on the outer circle but never getting too friendly with those dwarves. They were different from the people Rosa spent her time with in the inner circle. No finery here. Simply war. 

He had discovered the litter of kittens in the higher levels of the settlement. Close to the gates. A cat had wandered in and given birth. Thorin had thought of simply stumping the life out of them. Preserve provisions. They didn’t need to spare food for animals. But only the thought of Rosa had stopped him. He thought she’d like to see these kittens. He knew that this would make her smile. And afterwards, when Rosa had gotten bored of them, they could use the cats as bait for the walkers in their traps, Rosa didn’t need to find out about that part.

Rosa had loved the little things. She had spent almost all of Thorin’s watch sitting beside the litter, trying to pet them and play with them. The mama cat had eventually gotten used to her. But when Thorin’s watch was over and it was time to go back down Thorin had put his foot down and dragged Rosa down with him. There was no way that he would leave her alone here, with these men who looked at her. He had promised her to let her come to sit with him during his watch the next day.  
Next day never came. Not for Thorin. When he woke up Rosa was gone. When he frantically started to ask for her, an old lady that Rosa loved best had confessed to Thorin that Rosa had sneaked out of the inner circle to look at kittens. 

He found her dirty, light pink shawl outside, close to the gates. And a little way down the road he found Rosa’s naked body, her frilly gown torn and hanging from her shoulders. There were bruises around her neck, on her arms and between her thighes. All Thorin could think was “Someone touched her.” Then for the first time in years he turned his head and puked his guts out.

He put a bullet through any dwarf that tried to block his was while he carried her body inside. It had been easy, they hadn’t expected Thorin to kill them upon sight. Except a couple of the most vile of them. When they had spotted Thorin with Rosa’s body in his arms they had shot to their feet and grabbed their weapons. Thats how Thorin knew who had done this to Rosa. He would have killed them anyway but now he knew what he would do. 

He never put a bullet in Rosa’s head. Not like any of the other walkers. Not like he had done with his own mother when she had turned. He simply chained the two dwarves up in a secure room, carefully laid Rosa’s already twitching and awakening body next to them and locked the door on the muffled screams of the dwarves.

They came for him, only to die upon his axe. Those who ran, Thorin found, one by one. Then when he was out of the settlement, soaked in blood, he pulled out his match box and set fire to the wooden fence that kept the walkers out. There would be no settlement in Zagreb anymore. And no mercy for anyone in Thorin.


	3. Chapter 3

The figure moved towards Thorin, slowly raising its hands. Thorin could make out soft curls, narrow shoulders, slender hips and.. impossibly, unbelievably, a pair of naked big feet.

“Please.” The figure said again, his voice trembling. It was a male voice but not rough like a dwarves.

“Don’t.. Don’t kill me.. Please.. Help.. Please..”

But all hobbits were gone. Past 30 years, Thorin had never seen or heard of a single hobbit. Not since... Zagreb.

“What is this..” He murmured to himself. Then louder “Stop! Who are you.” He raised his sword again. Can’t be a hobbit. He must be hallucinating.

The figure stopped and raising his hands a little more, trembled as he spoke.

“I-I-I’m Bilbo Baggins. Of Bag End. I’m.. I’m.. I don’t know what happened. Mr Glorfindel said to-to hide. Here. They would come for me. He said. ” The voice broke down and the figure lowered his hands to cover his face. “And I heard sounds.. Sounds of.. Horrible sounds of..” The voice dissolved into open sobs now. Loudly echoing in the freezer and the kitchen.

“Shut up!” Thorin whispered harshly. “Shut your mouth!” Lowering his sword he rushed to the figure to clamp a hand over his mouth. “Idiot! You’ll have this place swarming with walkers!”

Unfortunately this only served to scare the little man more and he started to hyperventilate behind Thorin’s palm, sobbing and squirming and generally making a ruckus. Thorin tried to shush him but the little man was panicking, unable to understand the danger he was causing to them both. Thorin considered snapping the mans neck. But..  
At that moment Thorin heard the gurgling moan of a walker. Than one more, then too many to count.

“Shit.” He let go of the little creature and raised his sword, looking around. A couple of them were coming through he swinging kitchen door, another just waking up, right next to the bench that was wedging the freezer open.

“Oh dear.. Oh god.. Oh god..”

Thorin ignored the other mans frantic cries and pushed him behind himself. 

“Stay put.” He said.

“No no no no no... Don’t go! Don’t leave me!” The man clutched at the back of Thorin’s jacket. Thorin easily shrugged him off.

“I’m not! But I cant kill the walkers with you hanging off my back.”

In response the other man simply huddled in on himself and kept crying. Thankfully trying to keep his voice down this time.

Thorin swiftly put his sword through the eye socket of the closest one, which had been trying to get up. In the darkness he couldn’t afford wasting time and arrows so he charged the kitchen door, skewering two of them in one stroke. Unexpectedly a hand grabbed his ankle and Thorin severed if off at the wrist. The stump kept reaching for Thorin but Thorin couldn’t see a head in the darkness under the bar. He decided to let it go. Not worth of losing time. They were out of time already. 

He ran the couple of steps back to the freezer and grabbed the little man by the collar of his shirt to haul him to his feet.

“Follow me, keep silent, move fast. If you can’t keep up I won’t come back for you.”

He said, then without waiting for an answer he rushed out the door.

Most of the corpses were still on the ground but some were twitching. He had to crack a few more skulls before he could reach the upper floor. One or two were no problem. But if this whole place woke up, there was no way they could get out.

Thorin ran down hallways, no bullets this time. The sound would only draw more to their location. So he cut down, arms, legs, heads, whatever was in his range. He didn’t look back to see if the little man was following, he could hear his horrified praying and muffled yelps. Utterly useless.

When they were finally out the door and under the waning light of the sun, bodies on the yard were twitching. One or two kept following them but Thorin didn’t stop to put an end to their misery. He simply kicked the wing of the iron barred gate parallel to the building. Iron bars lying over uneven rubble would make a pretty challanging ground for walkers. Even if they could manage to crawl over the bars, it would at least slow them down considerably.

It was done, he was out with a full bag of delicious, fresh food. He looked down to see the little man had managed to follow him out but was now crumbling to his knees on the ground.

“Oh dear god..” The man was crying silently, still trying to muffle his sobs with his hands. “All dead. They are all dead.. Not dead.. Elladan.. Uruviel..” He sobbed some more.. “Lindir..”

Thorin looked at the little man. The hobbit. Definitely, clearly a hobbit, now that he could see him in the fading light. It was a hobbit. Around the age of 40 Thorin would guess. His clothes looked dirty and rumpled but he bet they were very fine before the camp had gotten overrun. He was carefully shaven, his hair well tended even while looking ruffled. This was a hobbit who had lived in comfort.

It was a shame he would have to die.

Thorin sighed and rubbed his hand across his face. He was tired now and he wanted to get back to his camp and dig into his bounty. To find a hobbit in the middle of an overrun camp was a wonder that he didn’t have any awe left to spare for.

“Yes. All dead.” He said, wiping his sword on the leg of his pants. They were an old pair anyway. He’d get new ones soon.

The hobbit kept sobbing on the ground and Thorin watched impassively for a few moments. He knew he would leave this creature here to fend for himself however he would. He knew it meant leaving him for death. He just felt like he had to look for a moment. Take in the image of what was possibly the last remaining hobbit.  
Then it was too much.

“Right.” He said and sheathing his sword, turned his back on him and started to walk down the road.

“Wait!” The hobbit called out and immediately clamped a hand to his mouth when Thorin whirled to give him a warning glare. The hobbit scrambled to his feet and staggering, caught up to Thorin.

“Please.” He said, this time making an effort to keep his panicked voice down.

“Please what?!” Thorin spat. “I saved you, I got you out of that freezer through a mansion full of walkers. I didn’t rob you or kill you. You’re free to go. So go.”  
The hobbit looked at him with huge, scared eyes at that. His sobs had quited. He looked more reserved. An image of a different hobbit flashed before Thorin’s eyes. He couldn’t take it.

“Look. Keep to this road. Go down hill, until you see the sea. Than put the sea on your left and keep walking. They say there are boats. That can help.” He didn’t really believe that. Not after Utrecht, Munich, Zagreb or several other disapointments, the last of which had been Beyoglu. But he knew hope kept people moving forward and alive.   
When the hobbit started to shake his head no, getting ready to plead again, Thorin cut him off “Keep silent. Hit the brain if they come at you. Avoid Men. Watch out for booby traps. Always hide. That is the best I can do for you.”

Then he turned his back on the hobbit and started walking. The hobbit didn’t call out to him this time. But Thorin could hear his desolate sobs, fading as he walked away. But they never completely stopped. Even when Thorin was already too far away to be hearing the hobbits voice, he kept hearing the sound inside his head. 

He had found a police station. It was raided, no more guns or anything useful to be found in there. Except for cells that could be locked. Not all of them had keys, but some did. Thorin laid down his gear, took off the heaviest of his outer cloths, the fur lined coat which was too much for Istanbul spring, but Thorin would need come winter. The bullet proof vest, which already head several impressions on it. Plastic skater braces on his elbows and knees.. A mash-up armor, made up of whatever he had managed to scavange. He had lost the police helmet he had found in Plovdiv almost a year ago, he had hoped to find one in Istanbul but it looked like most of the stations were picked clean already.

He sat and grabbed one piece of round, browned spiced mince meat. He pit into it, spitting out the wrapper, and chewed thoughtfully.

A hobbit. Not a very young one. Probably has no family left. He had cried over elvish names, so Thorin thought maybe he had been the only hobbit in the elven settlement. How long ago had they been overrun? Couldn’t be long. Many dead still lying around and the hobbit still alive in that freezer.. Couldn’t have been a day even.

They must have locked the hobbit inside to keep him safe. Whoever had decided to lock him in there must have agreed with Thorin’s judgement of an easier death by suffocation. Or maybe they had imagined someone would at least come for the food, sooner or later, and opened that door. And someone had indeed. But it was more likely that a pack of wild Men would have found the food. And the hobbit. Then Mahal knew what they would have done to the little man. So scared and helpless. It was pure luck and chance that Thorin had been the one to find him.

It had been a long time since Thorin met anyone that helpless. That clueless. It had been a long time since the outbreak. Thorin had been careful to at least count the years and months. At this point, even the rare child he came across didn’t bat so much as an eye at a walker. Or death. 

Not this little hobbit though. The elven settlement was clearly well established and well protected, to have so much food and even electricity. They must have doted on the last remaining member of an extinct race. Kept him sheltered from all the death.

Lucky that Thorin had found him when he did... 

Lucky.

Meat tasted sour in his mouth so he put it down. 

He wondered if the hobbit took his advice. Had he even been sober enough to listen to what Thorin had said? Had he been too scared to listen and remember? Even if he had listened, would it matter? The sun had already disappeared behind the buildings, darkness was settling. How scared he would be when the first walker that crossed his path turned his eyes on him?

In his minds eye, Thorin saw Rosa, on the Istiklal Street, at night, sobbing and trying to run as walkers slowly shuffled behind her. No place to run, no place to hide. No weapon. Unable to fight. The hobbit wouldn’t even last till morning.

Thorin jumped out of the cot he had been sitting in. Paced furiously for a few moments. What could he do? Earn the hobbit a few more days? He traveled alone. Always. Never trust anyone. He had never trusted anyone. Except his own little hobbit. How could he keep the hobbit? Or save him? He couldn’t. The hobbit would have to die.  
But maybe not today. The rest could come later.

Grabbing his sword and hand gun, he rushed out of the station. It was three blocks up the hill from where he had left the hobbit. He ran, ignoring the walkers that gurgled and tried to reach for him. It took less than five minutes to reach the gates of the elven settlement. The hobbit wasn’t there. Thorin looked down, trying to make out the trails in the decending dark. He could see both their footprints on the grass that covered the tram line. And yes, there it was, a pair of big feet had been dragged down towards Tünel. So the hobbit had took his advice to go down towards the sea. Thorin followed the trail as fast as he could. Then cursed when the trail ended at the enterance of the old train station. The stupid hobbit must have hidden in there. 

He walked in, it was a pretty straight forward train tunnel. Two ticket booths on either side of the railway. Door of one was open, the other was shut. Thorin passed the one with the open door to walk to the other one. The glass was covered in thick grime and it was impossible to see inside in this low light. Unsheating his sword Thorin pulled open the door. 

There was a figure inside, sitting on the ground.

“Hobbit?”

Thorin whispered. The figure moved but there was no answer for a moment.

“Hobbit! Get up. We need to get out of this tunnel.”

The figure slowly started to sit up and Thorin reached a hand inside to help him up.

Stupid move. Too stupid for a dwarf like Thorin.

The telltale gurgling came too late, the figure lunged at Thorin’s outstretched arm and sank its teeth into leather.

“Fuck!”

Thorin tried to pull his arm back but the walker was attached too firmly to his forearm, Thorin only managed to pull it, along with the walker, out of the booth. Well, half of it.

Apperantly below waist, the walker was either already eaten or rotten. Thorin tried to swing his sword but, the weight that dangled from his arm was too close, walkers arms were trying to reach for Thorin’s face, Thorin flailed, cursing, he tried to aim for the eyesocket, but it could also mean piercing his own arm. He was trying to grab the arms of the walker to at least break its wrists when there was a thump, and the walker went still. Thorin felt a piercing pain in his shoulder but still shook his arm to get rid of the walker. The body of the walker came free of the neck and dropped to the ground in a crunch, leaving only the head stuck to Thorin’s leather bracers, the back of the skull was bashed in, oozing gore.

“Mahal.” Thorin muttered and pried the jaw open then threw the head away from him, dropping to the ground as he did so, breathing hard.

Then he looked up. There stood the little hobbit with an iron bar in his hands. It was still raised high and the hobbit was trembling. He looked about ready to shit his pants but he was standing there, over Thorin. He had saved Thorin from a rather awkward situation. Thorin refused to admit he may have even saved Thorin’s life.

“Hobbit. You can put it down.” Thorin said from the ground, where he was sitting.

And the hobbit slowly lowered the bar. Thorin started to chuckle.

“Good job.” He said. “I..” he started to laugh, deep and low. “I came to save you.”

His shoulders kept shaking as he sat there and laughed with a scared little hobbit standing over him.


	4. Chapter 4

The cell was small. It felt too crowded with the both of them inside but Thorin locked the door with finality. They would be as safe as possible, in here. If they kept to a single candle and kept quiet. The night was warm. At least it was, for Thorin. The hobbit sat huddled in a corner shivering. His small frame looked tiny on the Man sized cot, with his knees pulled up to his chest and arms wrapped around them. Only a little bigger than Rosa. Looking just as helpless.

Thorin sat down and started to unstrap the rest of his guards. He started with the dented leather braces. 

“It is always a bad idea to go into tunnels.”

He spoke at last. The hobbit kept looking at his knees.

“It’s impossible to secure. And you never see when they are coming. Too easy to get trapped inside. You’ll always have a better chance in an open field.”  
The hobbit looked up slowly.

“We’re in a police station.”

He stated unnecessarily.

“Yes but we have several locked door and iron bars here.”

The hobbit put his head back down on his knees and Thorin sighed. He picked up his coat from where he had left it and settled it on the hobbits shoulders.

The hobbit didn’t react. Thorin imagined that he’d be in shock. Traumatized. It was interesting to see.

They sat in silence for a while. Thorin offered a piece of meat to the hobbit but the hobbit didn't even look at it. So Thorin ate it himself.

After a while the hobbit spoke in a low, rough voice.

“What are you going to do to me.”

Thorin looked up and considered for a moment.

“I do not know.” He answered.

“Are you going to eat me?”

Thorin stilled. He wondered what stories he may have heard in the elven settlement. Men had gone feral first. Except they were more dangerous than any wild animal because they were still Men. Thorin had seen them eat elves, dwarves and even cannibalise eachother one time. 

“No.” He answered. Thorin had never resorted to that. He wasn’t sure he wouldn’t, if he had to. 

“Then what?” The hobbit asked a little angrily. 

“I don’t know.” Thorin answered once more.

They sat in silence for a while longer.

“I had never seen it.” The hobbit spoke again. “The outside. I kept hearing stories, accounts of scouts. But not... Not since my mother died. I never.. never imagined it was this bad. Not even after what they told me..” his voice trailed off.

“How long have you been in that settlement?” Thorin asked.

The hobbit shrugged, the movement minute under the heavy coat that swallowed him.

“I was a baby when they found us. Must be 40 years now.” He said.

Forty years. Thorin blinked in amazement. That was an eternity for a camps survival. They must have been very strongly guarded. It humbled Thorin to think he had been there to see its last day.

“How did the settlement get over run?”

The hobbit looked down at his knees.

“I.. I don’t.. I’m not sure. Dr Elrond had been negotiating with another camp. On Harbiye. It was a former military school. They had ammo. We had medicine. The Men in Harbiye were... I saw them. Once. Their leader. Mr Glorfindel never trusted them. And yesterday.. Day before that. Or.. yesterday.. I’m not sure. I heard an explosion. Most of our guards were out. They said the gates were down. On both sides. Glorfindel tried to hold the walkers out. I wanted to fight. He wouldn’t let me. Then he.. he..”

The hobbit started crying again, this time silently.

The Men must have lured the elves out. Most of their fighters at least, under disguse of negotiation, then bombed the defences. Thats why Men were the most dangerous, Thorin thought. And elves were always stupid and naive.

Thorin tied the hobbits hands to the sink when it was time to get some sleep. He left the fur coar to him to use as a bed. He would sleep on the cot. And the next they.. Next day he would decide what to do with his little burden.

-

Thorin had a good breakfast, that consisted mostly of cheese and bread. The bread would go stale soon so they might as well eat it all. The hobbit ate this time, but very little. Nibbling on the slice Thorin offered him.

“Eat more.” Thorin said after a while of watching the hobbit chew one bite for ten minutes. “I thought hobbits loved to eat.”

At this Bilbo looked up. Bilbo Baggins. Thorin had at least decided to learn the last hobbits name.

“How would you know?” Bilbo asked.

Thorin didn’t answer.

-

It took less than twenty minutes to gather his posessions and strap on his make- do armor. He left his coat on the hobbit. Bilbo would need something to cover him incase a walker got to him.

“Where are we going?” Bilbo asked when they went out into the morning light. It was a beautiful day with a clear sky.

“West.” Thorin answered and pulled out his map. It was a tattered thing, he had pulled it off of one of the billboards at a bus stop. It wasn’t very detailed but it clearly marked the roads of Istanbul.

“We are here.” He put a finger on Beyoglu. “And we need to reach here.” He moved his finger to Silivri. “It’s a couple of days walk. It’ll take less than a day if we can find a car.”  
Bilbo bent over to look at the map. He knew the map very well, he had just never been outside to see the land for himself.  
“What’s in Silivri?” he asked.

“Boats.” At least that was what the rumors had said while Thorin was coming from that direction. He hadn’t paid much attention then. Now with the hobbit, and his pack full of food, Thorin had nothing better to do. They might as well move to take a look.

“But first we go to a mall.” Thorin said wrapping up the map to put it back in his bag.

\--

There was one, in the middle of the Istiklal Street. But it was mostly empty. Raided long ago. Thorin led Bilbo down stairs, where, he knew, the storages were usually located. They needed to kick one of the doors down, which was good news. It meant untouched stuff inside. It wasn’t much though, some simple clothing, mostly bathing suits. Maybe the locals had known it wasn’t worth opening. Thorin still managed to find a pair of pants. Elf sized, meant it was too long for his legs and too tight around the waist but that would be worked out. Thorin was lean for a dwarf. Well, at least he was lean for what people would expect from a dwarf before the outbreak. Lately no one got to sit down to a decent feast with several kegs of beer.

They checked for leftovers, Thorin pocketed several pieces of cable. He didn’t know what people used them for when he was a kid but they made sturdy pieces for tying and binding. Then he pocketed some locks. In one of the shops they found money scattered on the floor. Both coins and paper. It had mostly bunched up beneath a desk, like a windblown cluster of leaves. Someone must have cracked open the cashbox. Thorin couldn’t imagine why. He was walking past the cluster but Bilbo stopped. Thorin watched him bend down to pick up a handful and examine them closely.

“Come on, we don’t have much time. We have no use for money.”

But Bilbo didn’t move.

“I never had money.” He said eventually. “I mean I read about it. And Dr Elrond used to speak about it. When he taught me history.” He started to seperate the papers and stack them in his palm according to their color. “I had never seen it up close. It’s pretty.”

Thorin snorted again.

“I’m sure thats why people used to fight over it.” He said mockingly and in turn earned a glare from the hobbit.  
“I’m not stupid you know.” Bilbo said.

“I’m not so sure.” Thorin said, he was impatient. He didn’t expect trouble but nonetheless it was never a good idea to linger in unknown territory for long.

“I’m not. I’ve read lots of books. Dr Elrond had a great library. I know about the world.” The hobbits voice got quiter, “Even if I haven’t seen it.”

“Lucky you. ” Thorin grumbled. “Take the damned money than, we’ve been here too long, we need to move.”

Bilbo smoothed the crumpled paper and carefully selected the cleaner ones. One of every color. Then folded them carefully to tuck into his vest. Something in the careful gesture put a knot in Thorin’s stomach. Did all hobbits valued pretty things over survival? They must have. Look how they had fared during the outbreak.

\--

They were in a very central part of the city so malls would get less and smaller as they moved out but many were clearly marked on Thorin’s map. They made in a smallish park around noon. It had the bosphorus on one side and having his back to the sea was a comfort to Thorin. One directon that walkers or anyone else couldn’t come at him.

“My feet hurt. We’ve been walking for hours.” Bilbo complained as he practically fell down on the grass.

Thorin rolled his eyes. 

“It was just a couple hours walk.”

“No it was a three hour run.” Bilbo answered.

“I’m a dwarf. Not my fault if your legs are even shorter than a dwarfs.”

But Thorin smiled as he said it. Unpacked some more meat and cheese, then threw some on the grass in front of Bilbo before biting into a sausage. Bilbo picked it up but didn’t start eating immediately. Thorin raised an eyebrow at him as he kept chewing his mouthful.

“Thats not how you eat sucuk.” Bilbo said.

“That’s how I eat it.” Thorin said with his full mouth and took another bite to spite the fussy hobbit.

Bilbo shook his head then pulled out the small knife Thorin had given him. Thorin watched with amusement as Bilbo started to cut the meat into elipses.  
“You’re supposed to cook it over a grill.” 

Thorin took another bite.

“Or eat it raw like a savage. I suppose you can. Not harmful or anything.” Then he delicatly bit an elipse. “Just not as tasty as cooked I suppose.” He said after swallowing. 

“The fat that gets cooked in the spice burns out, in an orange color.” Bilbo kept talking but he seemed to be talking just for his own ears. “Then you split a bread and press it on the grill. Soak up the spice. Thats all the tasty bit, isn’t it. Or crack an egg on the grease. Watch until it gets brown around the edges. Meaty. With spicy grease and the liquid yolk... Oh god.” 

Thorin hadn’t expected the hobbit to burst out sobbing. And over what, some piece of meat? It was good meat, Thorin didn’t see why the hobbit would cry over it.

“Keep it down.” He said instinctively.

“I’m never gonna get a decent meal, am I... Never gonna get to eat eggs I bet. Or fresh tomatoes, laced in olive oil and sprinkled with thyme. Or the jams. Where would I find sugar? Is there even any chocolate left?”

When bilbo suddenly turned huge distressed eyes at Thorin, Thorin felt like he was to blame for the world coming to an end. He stared a moment with his jaw slack, then slowly shook his head no.

“There should be some in the settlement still. We have to go back for it.”

Thorin snapped his jaw shut and swallowed.

“No, we’re not.”

“But we have to, we have to Thorin!”

“No! It’s just chocolate, you barely made it here, at this rate we’ll be on the road the whole week! You need to pull your self together! Chocolate, eggs, pretty painted papers! Enough!” Thorin threw his own hunting knife to the ground which he had been using to cut the wrappers on the meat. It stuck into the earth with a dull thud.

“It’s either live miserably or die horrbily here, do you even understand that!? Do you even know what would have happened to you if some pack of Men had found you!?” He whispered loudly and furiously. “Let me tell you what! They would rape you, pretty soft little thing like you, they would rape you until you couldn’t walk, then they would start cutting pieces off you, keep you alive so the meat wouldn’t rot and so that you wouldn’t turn. You have- No idea- ” Thorin breathed through his anger and whispered through clenched teeth, “You have no idea what would happen to you! None! And you’re here, now, sitting with a strange dwarf who may turn out to be no better than the Men. And you are alive.”

When he was out of words he realised the hobbit was white as a sheet, trembling and looking at Thorin with wide eyes.

Thorin pulled his knife from the ground and sheathed it.

“I take you to the shore and that’s it. Until then you better catch up to the facts of the world, and fast.”

Unable to sit with the hobbit a moment longer Thorin got up, left his last bite on the bag and started walking.

“Wh..Where are y-you going..?” Came the rough, panicked voice of Bilbo but Thorin didn’t turn to look at him, just kept walking.

“I’ll be back.” He said.


	5. Chapter 5

Thorin had a pack of cigarettes. Only five left in it now. He had lifted it from the pocket of a dwarf walker some time ago. He saved them for special occasions. And this, to Thorin counted as such. He pulled one out and lit it. Then exhaling the smoke watched it take shape over the glittering water of the Bosphorus. It took the shape of Rosa’s face first, then the wind blew it shapeless. 

He never forgot about Rosa. Still not a single day went by that he didn’t think of her. But after thirty years her memory was more abstract. Like the cover of a book. Thorin still remembered every single word in the book but it had been a long time since he had opened it. He had been too scared to. Memories had always been painful.  
After the destruction of the settlement in Zagreb, Thorin had gone a little bit mad. Lost count of days for a while. He remembered lots of blood. He hadn’t cared if he had put down the living or the dead. He wouldn’t have cared if he had died.

So he had locked the memories into the deepest caves of his mind. It was too painful to remember. The image of Rosa’s lifeless, bruised body too hard to come back from. He thought of her. Every day. In an abstract way. Never letting the guilt overwhelm him, never in specifics. 

But this hobbit right here and now was breaking through all his defences, digging deep into the mines of Thorin’s mind and knocking relentlessly on the door that was labeled “DO NOT OPEN. DEAD INSIDE” One dead person inside. Just the single one that Thorin really cared about. And every time he looked at Bilbo, it was a struggle to not see her.

He knew that it was irrational to think that saving this hobbit here would be repentance for his inadequacy at keeping Rosa safe. Nothing he could do would bring her back. It was pointless. But still.. He couldn’t bring himself to leave Bilbo to die on the streets. The boats at Silivri was a dream, a lie. But it was still hope. Thorin was unable to abandon this slimmest chance of.. chance of saving a helpless hobbit. Maybe. He needed to be doing something, even if he knew it was pointless.

He threw the butt of his cigarette into the water and watched the waves wash it away. No seagull dived for it. There was none left.

\--

Bilbo was sitting with his knees pulled to his chest. The food was packed and put away, the hobbit was clutching the fur coat tightly around himself even through the heat.  
“I am sorry.” Thorin said but Bilbo didn’t look at him. So Thorin went on, “I’m sorry for scaring you. I’m not sorry for what I said. I could have put it better. But.. What I said is still true.”

He waited a moment and slowly Bilbo uncurled from where he was sitting. Then he slowly pulled himself to his feet. He looked a little unsteady but he’d get better.  
Thorin shouldered the bag and started walking.

“We’ll stop at Yedikule. There.” He pointed to a big building along the shore, looking too far away even in the clear light of the day. “We can spend the night there and keep walking tomorrow.”

Bilbo only nodded and followed him in silence.

\--

Thorin kept checking his map. They had passed Ayasofya some hours ago. The faded pink of it peeking behind the trees on a hill top. He didn’t know what the place was, but it was marked clearly on the map as a landmark. Landmarks helped him in this confusion of street signs and winding streets. Istanbul was a messy city. Not like Sarajevo, Nis or Sofia. And much bigger than all of them combined. He wondered how people had lived in a city so disorginized. He had the sea to his left and that was the only thing he could be sure about in this cluster fuck of roads and buildings.

When the sun started to disappear behind the buildings they hadn’t yet managed to reach anything that resembled what Thorin had marked as Yedikule on the map. Bilbo was lagging behind, dragging his feet in exhaustion. 

The hobbit had screamed and glued himself to Thorin the first couple of times walkers had turned their way and started following. But after watching Thorin kill each and everyone of them without even breaking his stride, he had calmed down. In the wide open road they had not much to worry about. They’d be fine as long as they didn’t find themselves in the middle of a herd and herds were rare anyway, it had been a while since Thorin had encountered a herd like the ones they used to hide from in his childhood. Walkers had scattered through the years and Thorin was grateful for that bit of stupidity the dead had in common.

But they had crossed the street to avoid what Thorin thought was a pack o f Men. The trails around the docks indicated a small Man camp. Not many people, maybe just four or five. Still Thorin preferred not to be seen by any Man. So they had been forced to walk towards the inner streets, away from the shore. They moved silently and kept watch as they turned each corner. Thorin was not comfortable with navigating narrow streets when the sun was about to set. He didn’t want to get lost or trapped. 

Then they saw a dark figure run past the entrance of the street they were in. A lean Man or an Elf. Bilbo gasped and Thorin immediately pulled the hobbit back to his chest and clamped a hand to his mouth. He pressed himself into the shadowy goove of a buildings gate and waited. Bilbo’s breathing didn’t slow down but he made the effort to keep silent so Thorin pulled his hand away from his mouth but he didn’t drop his arm tight across Bilbo’s chest, pressing the hobbits smaller frame into his larger one. Bilbo was tembling slightly. They heard running footsteps, then people calling to each other in loud whispers. 

“They saw us.” Bilbo whispered to Thorin, his scared little voice so low Thorin barely caught it. “They are looking for us.”

Of course. Bilbo did understand Turkish. He had grown up in Istanbul even if he had never seen it. 

Thorin waited and listened. Footsteps came from both their right and left but they were moving so they had not been found out yet. Then he heard the loading clunk of a rifle.  
“Shit” he swore but at the same moment someone opened fire. Just a short and loud ratatat fired into the air but Thorin knew what was going to happen. They had done it to draw walkers into the area. If they couldn’t catch the people passing through their territory, they would feed them to the dead.

Thorin ground his teeth and clutched Bilbo tighter for a moment as they listened to running footsteps retreat out of the surrounding streets. The Men were going back to their camp since the place would soon be swarming. 

“Quick,” He pushed Bilbo away from him finally when the footsteps were far enough. “We have to leave. Move!”

“What? Are they gone?” Bilbo floundered for a moment and Thorin grabbed him by the collar and started dragging him. Bilbo found his footing in a moment and followed, one hand tightly wrapped around the strap of Thorin’s backpack. Last thing he wanted to do now was to get lost in the dark.

They ran toward the closest exit of the narrow street but a walker blocked their way, followed by two more. Thorin drew his sword and pushing Bilbo back cut the head of the first one then stabbed another in the eye. The third one grabbed him but Thorin was quick to push his sword into the walkers brain from beneath its chin.

“Hobbit!”

He called turning back and saw Bilbo on the ground. That end of the street had also been blocked, walkers were pouring in, slowly but surely and one had already fallen on top of Bilbo. Thorin watched almost in slow motion as Bilbo planted a big naked foot into the chest of the walker on top of him and push. Walkers arms flailed and jaw snapped, clearly trying to bite the bare leg that was pushing him. 

With a roar Thorin charged. With his first stroke the walker that had trapped Bilbo fell motionless to the ground, soon followed by another, then another. Thorin hacked through the bodies that kept pouring in. But this wouldn’t work, he couldn’t kill all of them and they were surrounded on both sides. Which ever way he turned, he would be leaving Bilbo defenceless on his back. He kicked a walker with all his might into a group to slow them down and turned to grab Bilbo.  
“Into the building.” 

The door of the building was glass covered by wrought iron. The glass came down easily so Thorin could stick his hand in to open the door. Then when they were inside he pulled out his thick, black cables to tie the wrought iron in place to hold the door shut. Barely a few seconds passed before walkers were pushing at the doors and reaching in from between the bars.

“Up! Up! Find an apartment we can stay in and barricade. Go.” Thorin kept stabbing and hacking through the door, the cables wouldn’t hold for long.

Bilbo scrambled up the stairs and disappeared in the dark.

The walkers kept pushing. But thankfully not increasing in numbers anymore. But the shot had done its job and made it impossible to walk on the streets. For a while at least. If they could find a place with a working door, they could stay until morning and the walkers would have wandered off by then. At least enough that Thorin could make his way out.  
But the cables were coming undone under the push of the bodies and Thorin was getting tired. He couldn’t hit the brain from behind the gates, he could cut off limbs but that did nothing to stop the walkers from pushing. As time stretched unreasonably he started to worry. What if Bilbo had found more walkers inside the apartments? What if he was already dead?

Right when he was contemplating letting the gates go and run up to find his hobbit, the push on the gates eased. Walkers started to turn their heads towards the street. Then Thorin heard it, sounds of people speaking outside. In a few moments all the walkers that had been pushing at the iron gates had turned away and started shuffling out. Curious Thorin risked looking out between the wrought iron. He watched as walkers started hitting the ground one by one. He couldn’t hear gun shots, nor could he see what was putting them down, until one of the walkers got nailed to the wall right next to the gate Thorin had been peeking out of, by an arrow square between the eyes.

Thorin jumped back, instinctively hiding himself in the dark, behind the gate. He pressed his back to the wall.

“Korkma lan, korkma. Çıkabilirsin, geberttik ipneleri.Şşş Cüce!” (1)

Thorin let his breathing slow down and waited. He knew the voice outside was calling for him. He didn’t know what it was saying, nor did he care. They were clearly well armed. And it could be a ruse.

He heard footsteps coming closer and realised that he was out of time to run up the stairs. He would have to face them and talk to them. Who ever they were.

A young looking face of an elvish boy peeked inside and Thorin stepped out of the shadow. The boy grinned and turned to call back to his friends.

“Cüceymiş bak, dedim ben cüce diye!” (2)

Thorin stood there, ready to defend himself if necesarry. He hoped to Mahal that Bilbo was alright upstairs and he would stay there until these people went away.

“Konuşmuyo musun sen? Dilini mi yuttun? Hayatını kurtardık lan, insan bi teşekkür eder.” (3)

The boy babbled, his speech fast and his tone sounded mocking. Thorin didn’t like it.

“Speak Westron.” He ground out when the boy looked at him expectantly.

“Ne diyo bu ya..” (4) The boy cocked a head, clearly mocking now. 

Thorin growled but another elf appeared beside the boy, put a hand on his shoulder and from the tone of his voice Thorin assumed, chastised him. The boy sneered but he stepped back. The older elf took a step and opened his palms in a palacating gesture. Which was pointless as he still held a bow in one hand. 

“I apologise for the young one. I’m afraid we have not been able to create the best environment to teach our children courtesy. These are tough times we are going through.”

Thorin snorted at the underestimation. He had seen that before, elves who lived long enough to consider the forty year long apocalypse to be ‘tough times’. But he didn’t answer, still trying to decide if he would have to defend himself or not.

The elf sighed and dropped his hands.

“But he was right about one thing you know. We did save you.”

Thorin ground his teeth but still inclined his head a little.

“If you want my thanks, you have it.”

“Yes. You’re welcome.” The elf stepped aside but didn’t leave. Now through the gates, Thorin could see three others standing outside. None of them moved either.

“Well. We better leave soon.” The elf said, indicating with his hand that Thorin should get out. “The street is clear but I am not sure for how much longer it will stay that way.”

“I am not going.” Thorin answered and tightened his hold on his sword. 

“Why, may I ask? I only offer escort to safety. Nothing else. This is a dangerous place you realize. Men have a camp just a hundred meters down the road. They know not to attack us but they are not as understanding towards strangers. I’m sure they would be even less so towards a foreigner.”

Thorin couldn’t leave. Bilbo was still somewhere in the building. If he had been alone he still wouldn’t have gone with this bunch but he would have at least dodged them and gotten out of there.

“Why do you help me?” He tried to buy more time. He didn’t know for what, but it was apperant these people wouldn’t leave easily. They had come here for a reason.  
“Why not?” The elf replied infuriatingly.

“Why would you risk the lives of your people to rescue a dwarf?” Thorin insisted, he was getting angry.

“I wasn’t risking anyones lives. This was nothing. But we better speak of these matters in a safer place.” The elf bowed his head a little and gestured towards the door once more.  
“I am staying here.” Thorin said with all the stubbornness of a dwarf. He hoped the elf knew to give up on the matter when a dwarf made up his mind.

The elf frowned and opened his mouth again but Bilbo interrupted.

“Thorin!” Pattering of naked feet followed closely behind and Thorin closed his eyes and cursed.

“Thorin! Thorin I couldn’t... Oh.”

Bilbo stopped for a moment. Then tried to rush past Thorin,

“Oh thank god! Elbereth! Lütfen bize yardım edin, bizi kıstırdılar, diğerleri nerede? Siz mi...” (5)

But Thorin held a hand out and easily plucked the hobbit from his trajectory that aimed right into the elves arms, and placed Bilbo behind him. He didn’t understand what Bilbo had said but from the relief in his tone Thorin could see Bilbo thought elves meant rescue. Thorin had seen so many times how wrong he would be to think that. He gave Bilbo a warning glare and Bilbo subsided. Then he turned to look at the elves. 

The older one was standing dumbstruck, his mouth gaping a little in a way that did not fit the elegant and ageless face.

“Hobbit.” The elf said.

“Yes. Yes a hobbit. And I am responsible for his protection. You will let us leave now, in peace. And there will be no bloodshed.” Thorin declared between his teeth.  
But the elf only had eyes for Bilbo. Thorin wanted to kill him.

“Elrond’un kampından olmalısın, Beyoglu’nda. Yabancı bir cüceyle ne yapıyorsun?” (6)

“Ben.. Evet. Aslında dün-” (7) Bilbo started to answer and Thorin cut him off.

“You will only speak Westron!” He barked. He hated being left out of the conversation. Who knew what lies these elves would spin around Bilbo.

Bilbo cleared his throat nervously and looked at Thorin.

“I.. I mean. He asked if I was from the Beyoglu settlement. I said yes, I mean I don’t think they mean any harm Thorin, look at what they-”

“You never know. Never trust an elf.” Thorin whispered harshly to Bilbo and turned to the elf.

“Where he comes from doesn’t concern you. Let us leave. And we will not bother you. We can make our own way.” He was about to step forward and get ready to fight if the elves tried to stop them but to his surprise Bilbo shook himself free of Thorin and walked towards the elves.

“That is not true! What you said about elves I mean! Can’t you see, they saved us, we would have died here.” Then Bilbo turned to the elf. “Thank you very much for your help. We were just passing through when we were ambushed. The Men couldn’t find us so they drew walkers on us. Do you have a camp close to here? I mean we wouldn’t want to be trouble but we would very much appreciate if you could let us spend the night. Then we can be on our way.” Then to Thorin’s horror Bilbo said, with a helpfull smile, “We have food, meats and cheese.”

Damn the hobbit! Didn’t he know people killed for much less than cheese!? But of course, Bilbo didn’t.

“Bilbo!” Thorin could only choke out. He tried to grab the hobbit again but Bilbo stepped out of his way.

“Of course master hobbit.” The elf spoke, his voice sounded sly to Thorin, and dripping with satisfaction. “It is no trouble at all. We have a temporary camp. Very close. It would be an honor to host a hobbit.” Then the elf looked at Thorin, “It has been a while since we had the pleasure.”

“Oh thank you! Thank you so much!” Bilbo gushed eagerly, then as the elf gently herded Bilbo out with a hand on his shoulder he turned and shot Thorin a look. “Well? You coming?”

Thorin dithered on the edge for a moment. This was his chance to get rid of the hobbit for good. Let the elves question him, keep him as a pet, rape him, make him walker bait... Thorin didn’t care. He had never wanted the hobbit anyway. And the elves had forgotten all about him once they had seen the hobbit. He could just walk out. Go back to the police station. Or maybe towards Mecidiyeköy, inland. He did better alone anyway. More food to himself.

The elves were moving, starting to walk down the street and Bilbo pattered along with a smile, talking in hushed tones to the older elf.

Thorin cursed and ran after them to catch up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) - "Don't be scared. You can come out, we put down the faggots! Hey dwarf!"  
> (2) -"It is a dwarf! See, I told you it was a dwarf."  
> (3) - "Don't you ever speak? Are you mute? We just save your life, you should thank us."  
> (4) - "What the fuck is he saying?"  
> (5) - "Please help us! They ambushed us! Where are the others? Did you..."  
> (6) - "You must be from Elrond's camp. In Beyoglu. What are you doing with a foreigner dwarf?"  
> (7) - "I.. Yes. Actually, yesterday-"


	6. Chapter 6

It turned out the elves were camping in a two story building a few streets over. Three fighters, not counting the elf that had spoken to them. Apparently his name was Adan, the oldest in the group. Thorin was never good at guessing the age of an elf. Adan didn’t exactly look old, but he had that aura of age and experience. His cloths were tidy, tidy as could be at least, he had jet black hair, too long to be comfortable in a fight and dark brown eyes that were calm and calculating. One could easily mistake the calmness in them to be warmth.

There were three more at the camp, waiting for the return of the others. One was an old Man to Thorin’s surprise. And one was missing a leg. Last one was a girl. The elf with the missing leg stood up when they entered and frowned when he spotted Thorin.

There was very little discussion though. Thorin didn’t bother listening to their conversation, he didn’t need to understand a word to figure out that the one legged elf was angry at Adan for bringing in strangers. Their conversation stopped when Bilbo stepped forward.

After that, they had mostly ignored Thorin aside from the occasional calculating look the one legged elf gave him. 

Bilbo made himself comfortable immediately, he threw off the fur coat and sat down with them. Thorin was glad to hear no matter what the elves said to him, Bilbo replied in Westron. After a while they seemed to understand that Bilbo had no intention to exclude Thorin.

Still it seemed to Thorin Bilbo was much more comfortable in the presence of Elves. And why not? The hobbit had grown up with elves, he had seen nothing but kindness from them in the past. He had no reason to be distrustful. The whole affair made Thorin uneasy yet he could not bring himself to leave.

He tried not to dwell on how stupid and dangerous sentimentality could be.

“I had heard that there was a hobbit in Elrond’s care.” Adan was saying. “It is very difficult to confirm or deny any sort of news. In any case I dared not inquire further into the matter. I judged it would be prudent to keep that bit of information secret. ”

“You spoke to Dr Elrond??” Bilbo asked with wide eyes.

Adan shook his head. 

“Not directly, not since the breakout. He was never too fond of me. In our time, we’d had disagreements over ancient matters that carries no weight in the aftermath.”

“Then why didn’t you go to his settlement? They lived in comfort there.” Thorin cut in.

Adan looked at Thorin at length before speaking again. When he did his voice was subdued.

“I never would have wished this fate on my kin. The news you bring me of Beyoglu breaks my heart. But they are dead, master dwarf, and we are alive, are we not.”

Thorin had to conceed the point.

“Although I have a question master dwarf,” Adan went on, “I can see that you are a very capable dwarf, not many people choose to be alone in these dire times, but you have, have you not? If you’ve met Mr Baggins only a few days ago, one does wonder, why you have chosen to help him.”

Thorin gulped some water to stall. He had no intention of giving too much away to this elf but the elf was clever. 

“He is a hobbit.” He said succinctly and shrugged.

Adan nodded thoughtfully, then gave Thorin a look.

“Yes, he is. Yet I get the impression that you’re not the type to be sentimental over such matters. Survival of a lost race? No. I do not think you would give it priority over your own survival. Back at the occupied building you were determined to stay through the threat of a herd, because of Mr Baggins, even though it was clearly not the best choice for survival. Why?”

Thorin’s hands fisted in anger, who was this pompous elf to judge what Thorin would or would not do? Involuntarily he glanced at Bilbo to see the hobbit looking at him with wide eyes. Bilbo hadn’t realized.

“It’s none of your business, Elf.” Thorin spat, Adan almost rolled his eyes but he was too refined for such a childish display of frustration.

“I meant no offence, master dwarf. Such loyalty is rare, as I am sure you know very well. I merely find it curious that your admirable loyalty was given so freely to a stranger. I am sure you choose your allies very carefully.”

Thorin had no allies. No friends, no family, no group. He refused to admit that Adan was right, twice now he’d had close calls, because of the hobbit. And he had still followed Bilbo into this elf camp. Stupid, when he thought about it. But Adan didn’t know about... Rosa. Thorin forced himself to think of her name. Even in his own mind he shied away from giving solid form to her memory.

“Still none of your business.” He said in a rough voice and thankfully Adan did drop the matter. Thorin didn’t look at Bilbo again but all through the night he felt Bilbo’s eyes on him. Soon though, the subject changed, Adan made it plain that he wanted to know everything that was possible to know about the Beyoglu camp. Bilbo told him everything freely and Adan listened.

Bilbo asked a lot of questions after that, about how they had come together, how they had survived, where they were coming from, where they were going to, what news they had heard of various places.. Some of the questions Thorin found to be naive but understandable, some were clever. Adan always answered vaguely. 

It didn’t matter to Thorin, he had met such groups several times, the story was always the same. Adan’s group had lost people, were forced to move out several times, they were looking for food, water, shelter, they had heard rumors, most they had discarded, some they followed only to be disappointed. All that mattered was to stay alive. According to Adan, this would pass too, people would rebuild no matter what. Thorin had stopped caring about any such hope long ago but Bilbo lapped it up. When Bilbo laid down to sleep with a smile on his face, Thorin couldn’t find it in himself to crush those hopes. Maybe Adan was right but Thorin didn’t think they would live to see it. Some elves would maybe, but not Thorin or Bilbo.

So he let the hobbit believe it. But he wouldn’t sleep tonight. It was clear that Adan had helped them to get information and Bilbo had provided it in spades. In Thorin’s experience that made them useless in Adan’s eyes now. No need to keep them alive.

Thorin pulled his dirty mattres close to Bilbo’s, trapping the hobbit between the wall and himself. They would have to go over Thorin before getting to Bilbo, if they tried anything during the night. He kept an eye on the exit and one dagger in his hand, hidden under his makeshift pillow, just in case.

\--

Thorin woke up at dawn and listened. The camp was still asleep. The old Man was snoring, under that, if he strained himself he could hear the sound of waves. He opened his eyes only to be met with a face full of curly hair.

Bilbo must have scooted closer to Thorin for warmth during the night. His hair smelled dirty, but not unpleasant. Even with the sweat and dust that clung to it, it was soft across Thorin’s lips. Thorin lifted his arm that he had wrapped around Bilbo in his sleep, Bilbo sighed, shifted a little and settled again without waking up so Thorin decided he could lie still for a moment. Black fabric covered the widows but Thorin could still tell it was dawn. The room wasn’t the deep, inpenetrable darkness of the night without city lights.

It had been a while since Thorin had been this close to a warm body. And it fit perfectly into Thorin’s larger one. He had been too busy to notice it before, when he was fighting walkers or hiding from the Men that were hunting them, but Bilbo was the perfect height for Thorin and had the perfect plump bottom, which was, at that moment, pressed into Thorin’s groin. Heat rushed to Thorin’s face when he felt himself harden, but there was no one awake to see it. 

Last person Thorin had held close had been Rosa and Rosa had always been a sister to him. He had raised her and not even in the coldest nights the thought had crossed Thorin’s mind. Rosa had been something pure and delicate in a world of cruelty, death and pain. She had just been a child in Thorin’s eyes when she had died. The last good thing in the world.

But Bilbo was no child. He was an adult, in his prime. Still as naive as Rosa, despite all the education he had recieved from elves in his settlement. Just as defenseless and pure. And Thorin wanted to touch Bilbo all over, feel his warmth and softness. Bilbo still had the plumpness of a well fed hobbit, Thorin slowly moved his hand toward his belly to feel the gentle swell of it through the clothes. Lived in comfort. Healthy. Thorin intended to keep Bilbo that way as long as possible. 

In the darkness, it felt like a dream, trailing his fingers over Bilbo’s stomach so he got more daring and moved his hand down to Bilbo’s thighes and held his breath. Thorin was hard now, his pants felt too tight but he didn’t move his hips back from where they were pressed, he only forced himself to lay still and not rut into Bilbo’s ass. He didn’t... He hadn’t meant...

Thorin opened his eyes once more and snatched his hands way, then silently got out of the bed, leaving his coat to cover Bilbo. Bilbo shuffled a little, smacked his lips and hugged the furs in his sleep. Thorin turned away from him.

Outside, the morning was chilly, it felt refreshing on Thorin’s flushed face, he walked a few paces to the back of the small building, his breathing was a little labored, he quickly checked the area to spot a couple of walkers, simply too far away to bother him. He slipped into the alley and pressed himself to the cool and grimy wall. He fumbled a little with the layers of clothing but managed to pull open the front of his pants, he planted one hand on the wall and wrapped the other around his cock. It didn’t take long before his white seed splashed on to the stained cement. It had been a while since Thorin had done this, his orgasm hit him fast and strong, leaving him breathing hard with his forehead pressed into the bricks. He could still smell Bilbo’s hair and feel the muted curves of his body in his palms. 

It had been wrong, so wrong to touch Bilbo that way. While the other hobbit slept, no less. He took several moments to hate himself as he calmed down. He had sworn no oath to protect the hobbit, the hobbit was simply tagging along. But was he really? If Adan had not been right in his questioning, why did Thorin feel like he had violated some sort of code or trust? He didn’t have any codes, he didn’t believe in trust. He had left morality behind him long ago, so why did Thorin feel so guilty for touching Bilbo like that and wanting him so badly that he had to run out and jerk off? 

Images popped into his mind, as if his brain was mocking him for the sudden manifestation of his conscience. Images of Bilbo naked, smooth skin on display, his bottom round and delicious, Bilbo laying on a soft bed, smiling at Thorin in that geniune way he had, Bilbo’s mouth in a perfect O as he moaned, his hair slick with clean sweat, Bilbo’s pink lips, arms, Thorin kissing his belly, lower and lower..

Thorin grunted and shook his head to get rid of the images, grabbed his now soft cock and pissed on the side of the dumpsters. Then he tucked himself away and resolved to think of any such things no more. He would get the hobbit to the boats and that would be that.

\--

Thorin rummaged in the bags for anything useful. He pulled out a thermos half full of water and moved on to the next bag. It would be light outside soon and he didn’t know when the elves would wake up. He intended to take Bilbo and leave before they did. The hobbit would make a fuss over robbing their hosts so Thorin left waking him up to the last.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Thorin whipped around with the thermos still in his hands. It was the one legged elf, his name was Alata or Arata or something like that, Thorin didn’t remember or care. He was standing in the doorway, leaning on his crutch.

“Go back to sleep cripple.” Thorin said and turned back to the bags.

“You’re stealing from us?! We save your life and give you shelter and that’s what you do? Steal?”

Thorin took the few steps to reach the elf and pulled out his dagger to hold it under the elfs chin, the elf didn’t flinch.

“I am only taking what we need. You ate our food yesterday and you have plenty of water. So it’s fair trade.” Thorin said holding the elfs gaze.

“Then why are you doing it while everyones asleep. Theif.” The elf bit out in a loud whisper.

Thorin pulled his dagger back. He had intended to kill the elf before he woke the others but the elf would have done it already, if he had meant to.  
Thorin walked back and carefully placed the thermos into his own bag.

“Because I can not trust your people to be fair.” He said.

The elf sat there and watched Thorin as Thorin gathered what was left of his belongings. When the only thing left to do was to wake Bilbo he turned to the elf before doing that.

“Alright, what the fuck do you want? I know you want something from me because otherwise you would have raised hell by now. What terrible thing is it that you want from a thief that you don’t want your friends to find out about?”

At that, for the first time the elf looked down. 

“You’re right. It isn’t something I can ask of them.” The elf finally spoke.

Thorin waved a hand impatiently. 

“I want you to kill me.” 

“What.” 

The elf shuffled a little but after a moment looked up with determination and held Thorin’s gaze.

“You heard me.”

Thorin frowned.

“Why don’t you just walk out of here and be done with it then?”

The elf scoffed.

“I don’t want to be torn to pieces alive. Then come crawling back legless, with my guts hanging out.” The elf shuddered. “No. I want a clean death. Bullet to the head. I don’t want the others to know. That I’m dead I mean. So you take me with you, for a while and when we’re far enough from here, you kill me. The others will think I simply left with you because I wanted to. They won’t have to mourn me, I’ll die in peace and you’ll get out of here without a mess.”

“What if I’m not a murderer?” Thorin asked.

“Please.” The elf scoffed. “I don’t pretend to know what or who you are, why you carry that hobbit around either. But Adan was right. You are a dwarf alone. No one survives out there alone. Unless he is a cold hearted killer.”

Thorin almost got offended for a moment but then he laughed silently.

“Alright. But still if I say no?”

Alatar or whatever shrugged. “I wake the others. Then we see how you fare against four archers.”

“What if I kill you right now?”

“Good luck doing it without waking the others. Look, I don’t want anyone else to get hurt, alright? ”

Thorin looked him up and down for a moment. All he needed to do was take the elf along for a while and he could kill him with a bullet to the head when they were far enough. It would be no trouble. The cripple would slow them down for sure but Thorin wasn’t sure he could protect the hobbit if a fight broke out here and now.  
Thorin sighed. 

“Fine. I’ll do it.” He shouldered the bag and went to Bilbo’s side. “We’re leaving right now though. You better be fast about packing if you want to take anything with you.”

The elf nodded. “I don’t need anything. Only.. I’ll meet you outside.” Then he hobbled out the door.

Thorin looked after him for a moment and felt a twinge of disgust mixed with pity. He hated weakness, people who gave up didn’t deserve respect. Yet it was still sad in a kind of way. It wasn’t too hard to understand why people sometimes decided to give up.

He woke Bilbo and ushered the still half asleep hobbit outside. He wanted to avoid having to explain why they were running while everyone was asleep, Thorin was sure the hobbit would want to say goodbye to Adan and the others. Maybe even argue with Thorin to stay with their group. Thorin didn’t want to deal with that.

“We’re leaving already?” Bilbo asked, his hair looking sweetly dishevelled and eyes a little puffy. He was clutching Thorin’s coat around him tightly, only the shaggy head peeking out from the top of it.

“Yes.” Thorin said and pushed Bilbo out. The hobbit went docilely.

“Adan doesn’t know?” 

“No.”

“Why don’t we just wait so we can..”

“Bilbo, be quiet. I have kept you alive and safe till now, take some advice and shut up.” 

Bilbo did but sullenly.

When they were out the door Alatar was already there, leaning on a crutch and holding a bag.

“I thought you said you didn’t need anything.” Thorin said and Alatar shrugged, 

“Have to make it look good.”

Thorin nodded and started walking away while pulling Bilbo along. Bilbo tried to both rub the sleep out of his eyes and stumbled to catch up but he still turned to look at Alatar,  
“What? Is he coming with us?”

Thorin didn’t answer and kept looking forward as he walked.

Alatar smiled at Bilbo sadly as he followed along.

“For a while.” He said.

Thorin pressed his lips together. He hadn’t thought about how he would explain this to Bilbo.


	7. Chapter 7

“But why Thorin! I understand that you have trust issues but they did help us out! Couldn’t we have at least said goodbye? I mean They had weapons too. Piling resources together is always..”

Thorin gritted his teeth as he walked a little faster, Bilbo had been going on about this for a while now. It was almost past noon. Alatar hadn’t said a word on the matter when Bilbo had tried to appeal to him, so the hobbit was now venting his frustration on Thorin. Thorin was about to have enough.

“Always what? What do you know about piling resources and sharing and bartering and starving? Fat little hobbit misses the pretty elf. Maybe I should have left you with him.” Thorin exploded.

Bilbo looked hurt for a split second and then frowned.

“Maybe you should have.” Bilbo stopped, forcing Thorin and Alatar to stop also.

“Hobbit.” Thorin growled out a warning.

“Hobbit now am I? Fat little hobbit..”

“When you’re being an annoying pain in the ass, yes, you are hobbit. When you pull your head out of your ass I’ll keep calling you Bilbo. ”

Bilbo opened his mouth to retort but Alatar cut him off.

“You both need to keep your voices down. And Bilbo, you really don’t want to stay with Adan.”

Bilbo’s frown disappeared and he raised an eyebrow at Alatar.

“Why not? Is that why you are coming with us?”

Alatar shook his head.

“I. I can not give you proof,” Alatar gently nudged Bilbo to keep walking and the hobbit did. They started again, in a slower pace. “but Adan is not what he seems.”

This was the first time since they had left that Alatar said anything about the group they’d left.

“What do you mean?” Bilbo urged, falling behind Thorin to walk alongside Alatar.

“He.. He says things sometimes. Does things that.. To survive, people make hard decisions, I understand that, but Adan.. Never mind.” Alatar sighed.

Bilbo didn’t push further so they walked in silence for a little while.

Eventually it was Thorin who spoke,

“How did you lose your leg?”

“Adan cut it.” Alatar said in an emotionless voice.

“What???” Bilbo looked bewildered but Thorin ignored him.

“Were you bit?”

“Shot.” Alatar shook his head. “One of the Men got me. Adan killed.. He saved my life. But Adan killed the Man woman who shot me.” Alatar looked down at his feet as he stepped forward. “She was pregnant.” He said and he sounded resigned. He sighed for a moment then looked up again, his voice came out stronger when he spoke. “The woman could have killed me if Adan hadn’t shot her. But the wound got infected. I lost the leg anyway.”

Bilbo looked at him with sympathy.

“That is so sad.” He said.

Alatar nodded. Then he added in a small voice “She could have killed me. I’m not sure she would have. She’d aimed at my leg.”

Bilbo had no answer to that but it gave Thorin no satisfaction.

After a while walking in silence Thorin stopped to point out a massive, wide building.

“There. Yedikule. We can stop for a break there.”

\--

Bilbo was sitting in the shade with his back to the wall, he had bunched Thorin’s coat to make it a pillow to put under his feet. Thorin would have told him not to put his feet on his precious coat but considering what he was about to do, he let it go. Bilbo would be hard enough to deal with later.

He walked to Alatar. 

“We’re far enough. ” 

Alatar looked out to the sea for a moment without answering but nodded. 

Thorin waited for him to move. He wasn’t going to shoot Alatar where Bilbo could see.

“Did you ever hear about the sea longing, dwarf?”

Alatar asked. Thorin tried to remember. 

“I think so. It was some bullshit about elves sailing home.”

Alatar nodded.

“Yes. Bullshit. Well, it is bullshit now I suppose. Since elves have no home anymore. It was destroyed long before I was born. Long before any living elf was born.”

“Dwarves are the adopted and unloved children of Eru.” Thorin recited his grandfather, then snorted, “Sucks to be mortal.” He said. Alatar turned to him and smiled.

“Not today.” He answered.

Bilbo was busy sorting out their left over food when Thorin told him to stay put and that he’d be back soon. The hobbit waved him off noncommittally.

Alatar didn’t bother saying goodbye.

They found a spot surrounded by trees, close to the sea. It was a beautiful little nook. The shot might draw walkers but Thorin could leave fast enough. Alatar dropped his crutch and turned to look out toward the sea while leaning on a tree. Thorin didn’t wait for a sign from the elf. He raised his gun to the back of his head and one single shot rang out, sending pigeons flying from around them.

\--

“Thorin! Thorin!”

Bilbo was on his feet and running toward him when Thorin returned.

“Thorin did you hear that? I heard a shot! We should leave!”

Thorin grabbed the frantic hobbit by the shoulders. “Calm down. It was me.”

“You? But why?” Then Bilbo looked around, looking no less frantic, “Where is Alatar?”

Thorin pushed past Bilbo and walked toward the shadow of the tree where Bilbo had unpacked some lunch. Bilbo followed him.

“Thorin! What happened?” He was starting to yell in his panic, getting clearly angry.

“Nothing that wasn’t planned. Keep your voice down.” He said and threw himself on to the ground. Bilbo didn’t sit, he stood over Thorin with his hands on his hips. Thorin didn’t look at him but it was clear from his voice that Bilbo was grinding his teeth in an effort to keep calm.

“And what does that mean o’ mysterious Thorin Oakenshield. If it pleases your majesty can you please take a moment to explain to me why you disappear with a friend and come back without him? When there are fucking zombies around! When he has trouble walking!”

“He doesn’t have trouble walking anymore.” Thorin snorted, “And he wasn’t a friend.” He reached for a piece of lembas he had nicked from Adan’s camp.

He hadn’t been expecting the punch. He froze, stunned for a moment, the punch hadn’t hurt much, Bilbo had the hands of an indoorsy academic and Thorin had the chin of a dwarf. But it was a shock.

He looked up at Bilbo. The hobbit was breathing hard and looking flushed, ready for a fight. It would have looked funny if Thorin wasn’t so frustrated.

“You will tell me right now.” Bilbo said.

Thorin touched his chin first, it ached slightly. Then he jumped out of his seat and tackled Bilbo to the ground, grabbed his wrists and pressed them into the grass. Bilbo struggled futilely for a moment then stilled and looked up at Thorin, scared. Thorin didn’t like the look.

“I told you.” He started, his voice deep and calm. “Nothing that wasn’t planned happened.” They looked at each other for a while, Bilbo frowned. Then Thorin started, “If you ever do that again-”

“What? You’ll leave me to the walkers too?” Bilbo spat.

That right there was the difference between Rosa and Bilbo. For a moment Thorin wildly wanted to kiss him. So he let Bilbo go but the hobbit didn’t get up immediately. 

“I didn’t leave him to the walkers.”

Bilbo sat up slowly. “Tell me.” He said.

Thorin went back to sit down under the tree, then solemnly told Bilbo of their conversation with Alatar that morning. How Alatar had given Thorin no choice and how he had been determined in his decision. Bilbo got up, then started pacing when Thorin told him about how Alatar didn’t want the others to know he was dead. When Thorin told him about the beautiful little spot next to the sea, surrounded by trees Bilbo dropped to his knees next to Thorin. There were tears in his eyes but he wasn’t crying.

“So you killed him.” He said in a forlorn voice. “I don’t understand why.” 

Thorin shrugged.

“Sometimes people give up.”

“But why...”

Thorin reached once more for the food and forced himself too eat a little. Even the lembas tasted like ash. It was surprising that he didn’t feel like eating anymore, usually he didn’t care who he had to kill. But seeing Bilbo upset was effecting him more than plain murder he had committed a few minutes ago.

He chewed and swallowed before speaking again.

“He was a cripple. A crippled fighter. That means something wholly different out on the streets than what it would mean in a well guarded settlement. He had his doubts, he had people he loved and cared about. And he had to crawl through days of putting his loved ones in danger, feeling useless. It was his choice.”

Thorin tried to explain. He hadn’t known the elf but he had seen the same happen before. 

“You are a murderer.” Bilbo said. It didn’t sound like he blamed Thorin. It sounded like Bilbo was just realizing a plain fact.

Thorin nodded slowly and watched Bilbo. 

“That first day. You could have killed me and be done with it.” The hobbit looked down at his hands.

Thorin didn’t confirm or deny this time. He thought he had made that clear at the time. He also thought he had made it clear that he had changed his mind.

“Adan was right to ask you why.” Then Bilbo whipped around to glare at Thorin. “How does that make you any different from an elf who shoots a pregnant woman?”

“I never enjoy it.” Thorin answered simply.

“You could have just let Alatar go. Refused to shoot him!” 

“A cripple left alone for the walkers? You really think that would have been more merciful? When he asked me to stop that from happening? You yourself just punched me because you thought I’d left him there.”

“He was a coward to opt out like that.” Thorin went on, “But it was his choice. When people are on the streets long enough, sometimes it just gets too much. It had nothing to do with me.” Bilbo didn’t answer.

They sat for a little while longer, Bilbo didn’t eat anything. Thorin didn’t push.

Eventually they got up to gather their things and when Thorin shouldered his bag and Bilbo shouldered his, Alatar’s was left sitting under the tree.

Thorin debated for a moment if it would be disrespectful to go through the dead elfs stuff, then decided he didn’t care. The hobbit had a weird influence on him.

“Wait a moment.” He told Bilbo and went back to open it and look inside.

There wasn’t much. Just some clothes. Nothing useful, Alatar had apperantly left everything useful to his friends. But clothes came in handy for many things. Thorin pulled them out and started to sort through them. Bilbo had looked like he would object first, then simply moved a few steps away to at least avoid watching Thorin steal from a dead person.

Thorin pulled out a rolled up shirt and unrolled it to see what size it was. Alatar had been slim, maybe it wouldn’t fit Thorin but it could do nicely for Bilbo. To his surprise a small bundle of silver colored paper dropped to the ground between the folds of fabric. Thorin picked it up. Something wrapped in silver colored paper. He opened the paper carefully to find rich dark chocolate inside.

A dead elfs treasure. 

Thorin looked back at Bilbo but Bilbo was staring at the sea with his back to him a few paces away. How long had the elf kept this little piece? Long enough to forget about it probably. He wanted to break a piece off and remember what chocolate tasted like. It was a very dark brown. He remembered hating dark chocolate when he was a child. Older people ate it, it was bitter. But now... He glanced back at Bilbo again and wrapped the chocolate back up, then wrapped it in the shirt once more and put it in his back pack. He picked out some clean looking socks, light undershirts and a pair of pants along with a leather belt. Then walked to Bilbo.

“We can leave.” He said. Bilbo nodded without looking at him.

\--

There was a hospital on their map, on the shore, on their way. They had been making shit time until now so Thorin pushed Bilbo harder to reach the hospital untill nightfall. Bilbo didn’t complain much and they walked in silence. When they reached the parking lot Bilbo spoke up.

“It’s a hospital for eye surgeries.”

“How do you know.” Thorin asked without much care as they passed a sign. There were no pictures to indicate as much.

Bilbo rolled his eyes, “It says it right here.” He pointed to the sign. “World Eye Hospital Ataköy Branch.” He translated.

Oh. Well that was a little disappointing but shelter was still shelter.

“Doesn’t matter.” Thorin said. “We can still find ourselves a spot we can secure.”

\--

There were a few dead bodies on the corridors, they either had head injuries or they had already turned into skeletons. Thorin made sure to check before selecting a small examination room. Someone had cleaned this place up. No beds on the first floor but he didn’t want to sleep on the second and risk getting trapped if anything happened. He had made a habit of sleeping close to exits. The problem was there were no iron bars to lock on intruders in a hospital, only flimsy wooden doors. He would have to set a trap.

He pulled out a length of rope and grabbing the chair near by, started on it.

“What are you doing?” Bilbo asked after while. He had sat down his gear and had been fussily trying to swipe a bit of dust off the floor with a broom Thorin had no idea where he had found. 

“Setting a trap.” Thorin said, pulling on the rope with a grunt to heave heavy equipment higher above the door. 

“How is that a trap?” Biblo cocked his head to one side, trying to figure out what Thorin was doing.

Thorin pulled the rope through the handle of the door and tested to see if it would hold. The wood could be too rotten to carry the weight. It held. Then he carefully closed it and pulled the chair away. The rope tightened.

“The rope goes under the door.” He said to Bilbo and gestured to a pile next to the table. “And here is some slack.” There was a knot and a loop tied on the chair next to it. “If anyone opens the door, this knot comes loose, the slack gets free to let this,” he pointed to the medical equipment he had heaved up running the same rope through the pipes above the door, “fall on to the walker, smashing it. Hopefully. And if there are more than one, the machine here is big enough to slow them down. They don’t watch their steps very carefully usually. It will make loud enough noise that we will wake up in any case.”

Bilbo looked alarmed.

“How are we going to get out??”

Thorin laughed and shook his head. 

“Hobbits.” He said and went to sit down on the spot Bilbo had cleared. Bilbo didn’t laugh but did sit next to Thorin and pulled out the thermos of water Thorin had taken that morning.

Bilbo had pouted all the way from Yedikule. But Thorin was glad to see he wasn’t at least scared of Thorin. Deep down Thorin wished Bilbo would smile and ask more stupid questions about pointless things but the hobbit was subdued.

Silence stretched as they sat. Finally, unable to take it Thorin got up. He went to his backpack and pulled out the bit of chocolate he had found. If he gave that to Bilbo now, would the hobbit consider it an insult of a payment for Alatar’s life? Damn the elf anyway, for making Bilbo sad, and confusing Thorin. Thorin had a pretty straight forward life before meeting Bilbo. 

He decided chocolate couldn’t make things worse and went back to throw the silver bundle into Bilbo’s lap. Then he sat down.

Bilbo picked it up slowly.

“What is this? Is this..”

“Chocolate. Yes.”

“Where did you find it?” The hobbit looked at Thorin, half surprised, half suspicious.

“In Alatar’s bag. Look it’s not payment alright? ”

Bilbo looked at the chocolate like it was the chocolates fault. Thorin was just glad Bilbo wasn’t looking at him.

“Then what is it exactly?” 

“I don’t know. Make you feel better?” Thorin ran a hand through his hair and beard. “Look I’ve been telling you it’s a cruel world out there. People die. Sometimes they want to die and be done with it.” Then he gritted his teeth for the next part, “I am sorry you had to see that but it is not my fault. So you can stop torturing me about it.”

Bilbo considered the chocolate for a moment then turned to look at Thorin, Thorin couldn’t read his expression but he breathed in relief when Bilbo did raise the chocolate to his lips and bit a small piece.

“I’ve been torturing you?” Bilbo asked when he swallowed .

“Well.. Yes.” Thorin answered with a frown.

Bilbo broke a square off the chocolate and offered it to Thorin. Thorin took it, surprised.

“I’ll try to stop then.” Bilbo said.


	8. Chapter 8

Thorin was rolling some of his clothes together to make a pillow for himself, he was preparing to go to sleep when Bilbo spoke again.

“I’m not the first hobbit you’ve met am I?” He asked, then went on, “I mean this is the second time you say something like that. ‘Hobbits.’ You said that when I asked you about the trap.”

Thorin thought about not answering for a moment then eventually said, “No.” He put the tightly wrapped clothes down and laid down, making it clear that he didn’t wish to speak any more.

“I never met another hobbit.” Bilbo didn’t seem to get the hint. “I mean, Dr Elrond taught me the brief history, farmers mostly, eating, singing, making merry and all that. No great accomplishments there, it sounded like hobbits were always more interested in their comfort than making history. History was always written by Men and Elves and Dwarves. The most famous hobbit before the outbreak was apparently an ancestor of mine. Bullroarer Took. He drove a cadillac and played golf. That’s it. A very good golf player and rich apparently, but no great contribution to the world. No Einsteins or Galadriels or Durins in hobbit history.”

Thorin sighed.

“They had their good qualities.” He said.

“Well. They did create the most delicious recipes, apparently. And grew the best tobacco.” Bilbo sounded forlorn as he said it.

Thorin turned to face Bilbo who was sitting up with Thorin’s coat piled around his waist. Thorin could barely make out his face in the dark.

“Hobbits.. They were all about the best things in life.” Thorin said in a low voice. “They valued life and beauty and joy. Dwarves were too busy with economy and oil, I was just a child but I remember things. Dinner talk was all about gold prices and stock exchange rates. My grandfather ran the family business and he never had time for family... Elves cared about technology. I read somewhere that Elves had went to the moon, cured many illnesses. And Men were just greedy. Dominating the corporate world, destroying nature.”

“Well, I’ve read about all that.” Bilbo said.

“Yeah. But hobbits were not like that.”

“Your family must have been rich. How did they let you mix with the likes of hobbit farmers?”

“They didn’t. I didn’t meet a hobbit until after the outbreak.” Thorin said. Bilbo leaned forward.

“You met hobbits afterwards? But didn’t they all die?”

Thorin snorted. “Of course not. At least not right away.” But then he fell silent. After a few heart beats Bilbo shifted closer to Thorin, his face loomed over him, eyes shining expectantly.

“Well?”

“We were traveling. We came across a village. We found a hobbit lady. She was pregnant. ”

Bilbo gasped. “What happened? Did she die?”

“Yes.” Thorin closed his eyes. “But not before giving birth to a baby girl.”

Bilbo sat back, 

“That’s sad. But a hobbit baby! What did you do?”

Thorin turned his back on Bilbo again.

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

After a moment of silence Bilbo asked in a small voice.

“Did she die too?”

“Go to sleep.” Thorin bit out.

“But Thorin if I’m not the last remaining hobbit don’t you think I have a right to know!?”

“You ARE the last remaining hobbit. I don’t want to fucking talk about it, go the fuck to sleep!”

Thorin almost yelled sitting up. Bilbo looked taken aback for a moment and Thorin thought he shouldn’t have scared the hobbit again. But Bilbo didn’t look scared this time. He just laid down slowly but kept looking at Thorin.

“Alright.” Bilbo said, in a placating tone. So Thorin laid down too. Then to Thorin’s surprise Bilbo scooted closer to him.

“But I know why you get angry.”

“Why.” Thorin grumbled.

“Because you cared about that baby. You act like you hate everyone and everything but you don’t, not really.”

“Right now, I do hate you.” Thorin said but his voice came out lighter than he had intended. 

“Maybe.” Bilbo replied. Then said in a more subdued voice “You cared about Alatar too.”

“Not really.”

“You did. You act like you don’t but-”

“No Bilbo.” Thorin pulled himself away from the hobbit a little. “I really didn’t. I didn’t want to kill him but I didn’t care if he lived either.” Then he turned away from Bilbo for the next part. “I care about you.”

There was silence for a while but Thorin dared not break it. Somehow he always lost track of reality in the dark. Lost control when Bilbo was close to him.

To his surprise Bilbo’s arm sneaked under his to wrap around Thorin’s waist after a while. Thorin felt Bilbo’s head between his shoulder blades. Thorin laid still, suddenly feeling very self conscious.

“I wonder,” Bilbo started but it sounded like he was talking to himself, his voice barely reaching Thorin’s ears, “what sort of life you must have led to become so cold. And what sort of strength of heart to still care about a little hobbit.”

Bilbo didn’t specify which hobbit he meant, Rosa or himself but it didn’t matter. Thorin had no answer to that.

They lay like that for a long time. Even though Thorin was tired he lay awake staring into the dark, feeling the weight of Bilbo behind him much more acutely than he should. He listened to Bilbo’s breathing. 

“I raised Rosa.” He said, so low that he wasn’t sure if Bilbo heard, half hoping the hobbit was asleep.

“She was beautiful. And sweet. She loved pretty clothes and flowers. All the best things in life. All the pointless and dangerous things. Like kittens.” Opening the cover of the book in his mind, carefully. “I was ten when my father left me alone with her. She was a baby then. She was thirteen when she died.”

Bilbo didn’t move or give any sign to indicate he was awake. Thorin went on. 

“They raped her. Then strangled her and left her body. I couldn’t protect her.”

At that Thorin felt Bilbo’s arm tighten around his waist.

“I killed them all. But it wasn’t enough. It didn’t bring Rosa back.” Thorin’s hands fisted remembering the fire he had started.

“You protected me.” Bilbo’s voice came muffled behind him. “I would have died if it wasn’t for you. That first day. And later when we walked into Man territory. And each time you killed a walker, you protected me.” There was a short silence before Bilbo added, “You even tried to protect me from Alatar’s death.”

Thorin curled a little tighter around himself. It was the truth and it was unexpected relief to hear Bilbo understood that. Bilbo pulled a little at Thorins shirt, urging him to turn and face Bilbo. Thorin did.

In the dark Thorin could see the outline of Bilbo’s curls and cheekbones. He didn’t see the hands coming up to settle on both sides of Thorin’s face, then Bilbo was pulling Thorin’s face close and kissing him.

Thorin froze, feeling Bilbo’s lips on his but unable to respond, unable to understand. Finally Bilbo pulled back.

“This is not payment either you know.” Bilbo said with a small smile. “I felt you this morning. Well it was kind of hard to miss. You must have a huge cock.”

Thorin sputtered and pulled back, looking at Bilbo, scandalized.

“I didn’t mind.” Bilbo added. “But when I woke up next, you were gone.”

Thorin felt himself flush, he tried to say something but his mouth had gone dry, he had nothing.

Bilbo looked at him for a moment, clearly surprised by Thorin’s reaction. Still Thorin didn’t know what Bilbo had expected. Next time Bilbo spoke he sounded unsure of himself, his voice going higher with each word,

“I thought you wanted me. If.. If I’m mistaken. I-I mean if it was a misunderstanding.. Of course I apolog-”

Thorin kissed him then. Like he had wanted to kiss him before. All teeth and tongue, he pushed Bilbo on to his back and rolled on top of him. He hadn’t had nearly enough when Bilbo put a hand on his chest and pushed him gently.

Thorin rose up on his elbows and looked at Bilbo, below him, looking dishevelled, his swollen lips curling into a smile. Thorin breathed hard. He wanted to keep going. Not just kiss but touch too.

“Slower. At first.” Bilbo said and reached up to kiss Thorin lightly, teasing his lips open with the tip of his tongue. Thorin let him. They kissed like that for while until Bilbo dropped back onto the his pile of clothes and to Thorin’s delight raised his hips to grind his erection into Thorin’s. Thorin moaned and dropped his head on the crook of Bilbo’s neck.

“Still feels huge. Even through the clothes.” Bilbo whispered into his ear, Thorin nipped at Bilbo’s neck in frustration.

“Is this your first time?”

The question had the effect of a cold shower on Thorin. He froze, then slowly raised his head to look away. He moved to sit up but Bilbo wrapped his arms around his neck and kept Thorin there, on top of him.

“There’s no shame in that.” Bilbo said, gently. “It’s alright.”

“I was a little busy trying to stay alive.” Thorin bit out but it came out more sullen than angry.

“I understand that.”

Bilbo ran his hands through Thorin's wild hair. It was tangled at places but the hobbits fingers didn’t snag as he followed the curls down Thorin’s shoulders to his chest, then slowly pulled open the front of Thorin’s shirt.

Thorin closed his eyes and held still over Bilbo, aware of even the lightest of Bilbo’s touches. Then fingers found their way under the wifebeater Thorin was wearing.

“You have an amazing body.” Bilbo told him. “Strong and broad. Not at all like an elfs.”

“Fucked many elves, have you.” Thorin grunted and Bilbo pinched his nipple lightly. Thorin bit his lip. Why would that both hurt and feel so good?

“As a matter of fact, yes.” 

“Don’t-” Thorin started and Bilbo’s fingers stilled immediately. He looked at Thorin questioningly.

“Don’t tell me about them.” Thorin ground out. “I don’t want to know.”

Bilbo smiled and leaned up to place a kiss on Thorin’s lips again.

“Are you jealous?” He asked playfully but when Thorin replied, he was completely serious.

“Yes.”

“Alright.” The hobbit agreed easily. 

After that Bilbo was tugging at Thorin’s clothes to get them off and Thorin sat up to help him. He threw the shirt and the wifebeater away then turned to Bilbo expectantly. But the hobbit wasn’t getting undressed, instead he was looking at Thorin with an expression Thorin couldn’t decipher.

“Truly, impressive.” Bilbo said at last and Thorin flexed a little, showing off. When the hobbit didn’t make any move to undress himself Thorin reached for the collar of Bilbo’s shirt. Bilbo’s hands fell away from where they were roaming Thorin’s chest.

“Go ahead.” Bilbo urged when Thorin stalled a little. He popped the first few buttons himself then Thorin took up the task, slowly revealing Bilbo’s almost hairless chest, then his soft belly.

“I’m nowhere near as impressive as you, I’m afraid.” Bilbo smiled a little shyly but didn’t move to cover himself up, simply sitting there and letting Thorin look his fill.

“No.” Thorin said and his voice sounded thicker than usual to his ears. “You’re lovely. Perfect.” Then he looked up to see a light blush on Bilbo’s cheeks. “I want to see your ass.”

Bilbo rolled his eyes.

“You are a charmer Thorin Oakenshield.” He said but did raise his hips to push off his pants. Thorin barely got a glimpse of Bilbo’s pink hard cock in the dark before the hobbit plopped himself down again face first, unashamedly presenting his bottom to Thorin.

Thorin was kneeling above him with his knees on Both side of Bilbo’s hips, and when he looked down it was even better than what he had imagined.

“You can touch me, you know.” Bilbo said looking over his shoulder.

So Thorin reached out and was surprised to find his hand trembling a little. Never had his hands trembled when he had killed so many times, cut limbs or shot walkers. He placed his palms on Bilbo’s ass and traced the curves, then leaned to place an open mouthed kiss on one plump white cheek. Bilbo giggled. Thorin sat up again.

“You think I’m funny.” He said, half angry half petulant. But Bilbo shook his head.

“No no. Not at all. Your hair tickles.”

Thorin got up, pushed off his pants, then he gathered his hair into a bunch and threw it over his shoulder. As Bilbo watched he kneeled on the bed once more and laid himself over the hobbit, from head to toe.

“I want to fuck you.” Thorin said and kissed Bilbo behind the ear then where neck met shoulder. Bilbo shuddered and squirmed beneath him. His squirming only worked to seat Thorin’s cock between Bilbo’s cheeks snugly and it was so warm. Thorin groaned and moved his hips a little, just enough to feel himself there. “You don’t mind?” He asked.

“Thorin. I’d mind it very much if you didn’t fuck me at this point.” Bilbo breathed, he sounded impatient and a little breathy. “Not like this though. We need lube.” He said.

Thorin frowned. “Like what?”

“I don’t know.” Bilbo raised himself on his elbows and looked around for a bit, thinking. Then he sighed and dropped his head. “Who knew of all the things, lube is what I’d miss the most.”

Thorin leaned up a bit and for a moment Bilbo shivered without the hot press of Thorin’s chest on his back. Then he heard the wet sounds of Thorin sucking on his own finger and it wasn’t long after that, that he felt the light touch of it at the crack of his ass. Thorin’s hair caressed his shoulders again, Biblo imagined the dwarf bending his head over him to see where he was putting his finger.

“Will that do?” Thorin’s throat was dry when he asked.  
“Yea..” Bilbo breathed.

Thorin wished he could see better but it didn’t matter, he trailed his fingers down, spreading saliva until he felt the soft and tight opening. His cock throbbed, he was so hard it was nearly painful. But he pressed his lips together and slowly pushed his finger inside. He head Bilbo sigh out a soft “Oh..”

By the time he had almost three fingers inside Bilbo was squirming and sweating a little. Thorin’s muscles were straining from holding his weight on one arm over the hobbit and Bilbo had a hand wrapped around his wrist, caressing, tugging, sinking his nails into Thorin’s forearm when Thorin hit the right spots with his fingers and holding on for dear life. 

“Is that.. Is that enough?” Thorin asked but his voice was wrecked. Deeper than Bilbo had ever heard it, almost a sexual thing in and of itself, like a bass cord that Bilbo could feel straight through from behind his balls to the pit of his stomach.

Thorin was very glad when Bilbo answered with a frantic,

“Yes! Yes.. God yes.. Just..” The shaggy head was buried in the roll of clothes that served as a pillow but Thorin could see Bilbo was nodding.

His cock strained towards the pale, delicious cheeks as if it knew where heaven was. He slowly positioned his cock and pushed inside.

Then immediately stopped when Bilbo made a choking noise.

“Are you-”

“Yes I’m fine. Just go slow. Don’t stop.”

And Thorin pushed into tight heat as he laid himself back down on his hobbit. Bilbo felt amazing. Everything about him felt amazing, the smooth skin, soft in all the right places, warm and unbelievably alive, squirming and tensing up when Thorin made the smallest motion. So he willed himself to wait until Bilbo was ready, his cock in a vice like grip, burning and he wanted pound into Bilbo until the hobbit was screaming in pleasure.

“Mmm..move..” Bilbo half moaned eventually and Thorin did.

It was hard to control the pace when all he wanted to do was fuck, but he would not hurt Bilbo. He put his lips on Bilbo’s shoulders and kissed wherever he could reach. He wanted to touch so badly, so touch he did, Bilbo’s arms, chest, he rolled the tiny nipples when he reached them and listened to Bilbo moan as he kept fucking him, slowly, with long strokes. He wanted to see all of Bilbo in day light, memorize the color of his nipples and all the places the hobbit blushed.

“Oh god.. Thorin..”

Thorin could only grunt in answer, his mouth too busy on the hobbits skin.

“Harder... You can fuck me harder now..”

And Thorin did that too. He went at first a little faster, than a lot faster. After a while he felt himself getting close and by that time Bilbo had half raised himself on his knees, the clothes pile they had been lying on was messed up terribly, Thorin’s knees scraping on the dirty ground, but he didn’t feel that. He felt Bilbo’s hand clutching his hair by the roots where the hobbit had reached over his shoulder, he felt Bilbo’s hard cock in his hand, slick all on its own, and the tight heat he never wanted to leave.

“Ah! Ah! Thorin.. Fuck.. Thorin..” Bilbo brokenly kept repeating his name and Thorin wanted to remember every detail about it. 

He held back, wanting to feel Bilbo come first but he didn’t have the presence of mind to put to use all the tricks he had learned by himself, he just held on and let Bilbo rock himself between his fist and cock.

“Ohh!” Bilbo finally came with a loud moan, and Thorin was coming too before the hobbit was even done spurting into his hand.

He pulled Bilbo’s hips to his as tight as he could, and growled, no doubt leaving marks where he was squeezing too tight but he didn’t care. He came as deep inside Bilbo as he could reach, wishing he could stay there forever.

Bilbo collapsed under him after a moment, going boneless and Thorin let himself linger for a moment before his cock had gone completely soft, then fell on his side next to Bilbo.

They were both breathing hard and all Thorin could think was he wanted more. More of Bilbo, this, everyday, all day. If Bilbo would let him, he could be up and ready to go in another ten or so minutes.

But he said none of it, he just pulled Bilbo into his chest and kissed him. Bilbo moaned dazedly and snuggled into the crook of Thorin’s arm.

“You lied to me.” Bilbo murmured when Thorin was about to fall asleep.

“Mm?” He didn’t even bother opening his eyes.

“There is no way that was your first time.”

Thorin chuckled without a sound and kissed the top of the hobbits head.


	9. Chapter 9

In that state between dream and reality, Thorin became aware of sounds. Footsteps, to be exact. 

Bilbo’s scent was all around him and he had been having pleasant dreams, nothing specific, just a feeling of well being, a smiling hobbit and a warm body. Sounds of footsteps tried to insert themselves into the dream but there was no room for them. They didn’t make sense.

Thorin’s eyes snapped open, instantly alert. Adrenalin rushed through his veins as alarm bells went off in his head. Footsteps. And they weren’t slow, dragging steps of walkers either. More than one person was walking up and down the hallway, probably opening doors to look inside. 

And as if to prove him right, the door to the room they were in opened right at that moment, before Thorin even had the time to sit up.

Then there was of course the loud crash of the complicated and heavy machine he had pulled over the door as a trap. It fell on someone with a sickening crunch and a short scream.

“What?” Bilbo sat up but Thorin had already jumped out of the make shift bed and was reaching for his pants. He threw the smaller pair at Bilbo.

“Shut up! Get dressed.”

He could already hear footsteps approaching.

“Oh dear! Is that..”

Bilbo was looking at the mess of pieces of machinery and the body broken under it.

“Bilbo!” Thorin whispered a harsh warning, then pulled the hobbit out of the bed. He had managed to get his shirt and pants on but didn’t have time for the buttons. Bilbo stood there naked and dumb struck, clutching the pants Thorin had thrown at him, then he was also trying to sort out his pants and hopping around to get a leg in.

Thorin grabbed his gun and picked up his axe in his other hand, then placed himself between the door and Bilbo, slightly to the side of the door and next to the body. He couldn’t tell if it was an elf or a man in the dark but it was definitely dead. Blood was still oozing sluggishly out of the skull. The footsteps had stopped and Thorin knew they must be just outside, waiting, assessing.

Then there was a hesitant voice,

“Daeron? İyi misin?”(1)

Someone hushed the voice but it was too late. Thorin took the single step that put the hallway in his line of sight and fired three shots in the direction of the voice. Then he jumped back. More shots rang out, bullets whizzed by the door.

“Oh dear. Oh god.” Bilbo was now partially dressed, he had his pants and Thorin’s coat on, he hurried to Thorin but Thorin stopped him with a hand, then gestured for him to pack their bags. Bilbo turned and started to throw whatever he could find into the bags haphazardly. Water first, then some clothes, a dagger.. Thorin strained his ears to hear if the people outside were moving. They didn’t seem to be but as soon as he peeked his head out they shot at him again. They must have realized their friend was dead and assumed there were more traps. Thorin wished there were more. And now their exit was also blocked.

“We don’t want trouble! Put down your weapon and we can talk!” Someone called out.

Thorin saw Bilbo freeze. He frowned.

“We out number you and we’re well armed. There’s no need to waste bullets.” The voice went on. 

Then footsteps again, coming closer.

“Move.” Thorin grabbed Bilbo by the arm and dragged him to the window.

“But Thorin-”

“Shh!”

He opened the window to see the ground was fairly close. They had camped on the first floor for a reason after all. The problem was the gunshots and the noise had started drawing walkers. The area was surrounded by a wide parking lot, and Thorin could see walkers starting to turn their heads toward the building and gathering slowly.

“Out! Jump!” He pushed Bilbo toward the open window, Bilbo looked doubtful for just a second then breathing deep, he jumped. 

Someone was already pushing the door open as Thorin threw the one bag Bilbo had managed to pack, after him. Then he only had a glimpse of the intruders before jumping down himself.

“Stop!” One of them yelled after Thorin but it was stupid, as more bullets followed him out the window and whizzed above his head as he rolled on the ground and found his feet.

Bilbo was just a few feet ahead and one of the walkers were already reaching out for the hobbit. Thorin watched Bilbo scream and put a dagger in its eye. The walker crumpled to the ground. Thorin would have felt proud if he had the time.

More walkers were gathering outside the window, three of them already upon Thorin. Bilbo turned to look back but Thorin put the walkers down easily with his gun and his axe still in hand. When they were relatively clear and running through the parking lot Thorin turned to look back and see the window and the wall beneath it was now completely covered by walkers, making it impossible for the others to follow. He could hear the others shooting the walkers but there were simply too many.

They dodged the walkers that tried to reach for them, ran out the parking lot and onto the road. After a while they arrived at an open running track that was covered in grass and dotted with half rotten benches, along the shore. Thorin killed the odd walker that tried to follow them and finally he decided they could stop. They weren’t followed and they had made it out of the gathering herd.

They were both still breathing hard when Bilbo threw himself on a bench and pulled his feet up, wrapping himself tightly in Thorin’s coat. Thorin kept pacing. Thinking.

“They spoke Westron.” He blurted in the end. “How did they know to speak Westron? They were looking for us. Specifically looking for us.”

“Of course.” Bilbo said and Thorin stopped to look at him.

“Daeron was one of Adan’s group.” Bilbo explained. Of course the hobbit would remember the names of the people in that group. Thorin hadn’t bothered to listen to the introductions.

“Adan.” Thorin growled.

Bilbo put his feet down and sat up, reaching to take Thorin’s hands into his.

“Thorin, maybe they just wanted to talk? Maybe they were looking for Alatar?”

Thorin pulled his hands back.

“Fine way to ask about your friend, shooting randomly in the dark.”

“You fired first.” Bilbo pointed out in a quiet voice.

Thorin breathed deeply to calm down and not yell at Bilbo.

“They were shooting to kill. Bilbo.” He said, emphasizing each word.

Bilbo fell silent after that. But it was obvious the hobbit wasn’t entirely convinced.

Thorin ran a hand through his hair and sighed.

“We need to keep moving.” He said finally. “They must have tracked us to the hospital. As soon as they get rid of the walkers they’ll be on our trail.”

Bilbo just nodded quietly.

Thorin picked up the bag and looked inside to see what Bilbo had managed to rescue and was glad to see they still had some food and water at least. Even in his panic the hobbit had been clever enough to go for them first. He pulled out a stained hoodie and put it on.

“Come on.” He pulled Bilbo to his feet. The hobbit got up and grimaced.

“What’s wrong?” Thorin asked, immediately worried that Bilbo might have gotten hurt somehow.

“I’m.. you know.. still sticky.” The hobbit answered and Thorin snorted.

“You’ll live.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) "Daeron? Are you ok?"
> 
> \--
> 
> Just a bit of trivia about Istanbul if anyone's interested or wondering about authenticity;
> 
> Istanbul's surface area is, according to latest measures, 5343km2. It has 39 provinces with Silivri being the western edge. Thorin and Bilbo started right in the middle of the city. And I have to admit I only walked from Beyoglu to about their first stop at the park myself. I've been to Beylikdüzü and Silivri but even the bus and train rides that far is gruelling. So I'm trying to guess the distances they go on foot or how long it would take. Also none of the districts they go through can be counted as suburbs. Istanbul really is a too crowded mess. All the buildings and places, roads and streets and parks and everything mentioned in this fic are real places, even if I have not given specific names cuz I think Thorin wouldn't know or care very much.
> 
> And the nature of Istanbul is nowhere near as pretty as I describe in this fic. (Lol don't call me a liar if you ever go there) I just assume the Bosphorus would clean itself up if there was no population to pollute it for so long,+ and green would thrive when there's no one around to cut it down. It has that kind of climate.
> 
> It also has an astounding number of malls. All mega-malls, everywhere. I don't know if you heard it or not but a plan for destroying the last remaining central park in Beyoglu to make a new mall in its place was what started the massive anti-government protests in Turkey just a month ago. It's important to me so I felt like I should mention. #direnGezi


	10. Chapter 10

They walked until dawn. Then they walked some more. And even more. By the time they reached the second bridge on Thorin’s new map Bilbo was ready to lay down and die and Throin wasn’t doing much better.

They had lost the first map at the hospital, it had been left behind in the other bag. But it was easy enough to tear down a new one from the many bus stops along the road. It was faded and missing the half that showed the city center but they had left the city center behind them long ago. Although studying the map, Thorin was doubtful about how many districts Istanbul had that could be counted as ‘central’. They had just passed another mall, a boulevard and abandoned docks. He had ran in to the mall for a quick look but he had not wanted to waste time, now that he knew Adan’s people were after them. It had been useful though, Thorin had managed to find some more rope, stacks of newspapers (which was very useful in the absence of toilet paper), surprisingly some candles and even matches. Whole crates of them, untouched. He had grabbed only a couple of boxes with regret and ran out.

Bilbo had whined a lot about running like this. He had trouble understanding that the elves would kill them if they caught up. They would at least kill Thorin and keep Bilbo and who knew what sort of plans Adan had for the hobbit.

Thorin had distrusted the elf on first sight but what Alatar had said about him had cemented his initial impression. Not to mention how vague Adan had been on the subject of his relationship with Bilbo’s Dr Elrond. From what Bilbo had been telling Thorin, Elrond hadn’t been so bad, as far as elves went. Bilbo had gushed about how wise and kind he was. Thorin assumed there was a reason this Elrond hadn’t liked Adan and that Adan had been excluded from his community. Bilbo could be the key that opened doors for the creepy elf.

He wouldn’t let Adan have Bilbo. He didn’t have a clear plan about what to do with him if the boats on the Silivri coast turned out to be a pipe dream but for now they needed to be on the move and Silivri sounded like as good a destination as any.

“Thorin. Please. I’m not joking, my feet really are about to fall off.” Bilbo whined.

“We’ll stop. After the bridge.” Thorin said, a little breathless, sounding tired but determined.

Bilbo looked up and squinted under the afternoon sun.

“You can’t be serious! I can’t even see the end of it!” He protested.

“Half an hour.” Thorin gritted his teeth and kept walking.

“I’m starving.” The hobbit complained. He had long ago given the coat back to Thorin along with the thermos he’d been carrying. Thorin put one foot in front of the other, packed like a mule with the bag, the coat, thermoses and his weapons strapped to his back.

“I said half an hour.”

It turned out the bridge was longer than Thorin had assumed. It took them a full hour to cross it, with both of them dragging their feet and Bilbo lagging behind. The sun wasn’t helping much either, in spring, as chilly as nights were, day time burned when there were no shadows to take cover under. The wild, bright green covering the roads and the hills ahead was lovely and the water glittered an impossible blue. Thorin was too tired to notice any of it.

When they stepped onto grass once more Bilbo fell face first onto the first available patch of green overgrowth with a groan.

Thorin shed his load in the few steps he took towards Bilbo but didn’t immediately sit down.

“Need to take a look.. ” He dragged his feet as he walked past Bilbo towards the tiny building close by but Bilbo grabbed his ankle.

“Thorin. In the name of everything holy, I beg you. Sit down. We’re in the open, you’d see a mile away if there was a walker or an elf around. Gimme a little food then let me sleep.”

Thorin stopped and sighed. He was really tired, sun was getting lower and lower on the west. They had been tired already when they had holed up in the hospital. Thorin didn’t regret the exercise that had followed one bit, but they hadn’t gotten much sleep after that either. Then they had been forced to walk non-stop almost all day. 

He plopped himself down next to Bilbo and pulled the bag toward himself. Handed over some left over lembas and some spiced sausage. He had loved it at first but now he was getting sick of the taste of greasy meat.

Bilbo didn’t bother sitting up, simply rolled on to his side and proceeded to stuff his face, making obscene moaning sounds as he ate. When he had swallowed the whole piece of lembas and almost half of the sausage, he closed his eyes.

Thorin watched him as he ate as well, half disgusted half amused. But after a few moments of watching Bilbo laying in the mess of weeds and vines with his eyes closed, he poked the hobbit in the ribs.

“You can’t sleep here.”

“Watch me.” Bilbo murmured and threw his arms over his head. 

Sleep sounded like the best idea ever right now but one of them had to stay alert. So Thorin forced himself to sit up, straighten his back and watch the road on both ways with his gun in his reach.

Soon though, his head was drooping, he tried to sip some water and then splash a little on his face but lukewarm water did nothing to wake him up. 

Distant roar of a car however, was enough to send Thorin scrambling to his feet.

“Bilbo! Bilbo!” Thorin shook the hobbit maybe more forcefully than was needed. The hobbit tried to swat him away at first, then also becoming aware of the sound of a car approaching, sat up. 

“Did Adan have a car?” Thorin asked frantically and tried to remember.

“No. They couldn’t find a working battery.” Bilbo answered.

“Are you sure?!”

The car was coming closer, its shimmering silhouette was already getting bigger and bigger on the bridge.

“Yes! Yes! He told me about it. He was asking how you’d traveled so far and I-”

“Alright, doesn’t matter. Get out of sight. Hide.” Thorin pushed Bilbo towards where growth had turned into bushes to tangle with trees a few feet away. Further toward the building that Thorin had skipped checking.

Bilbo did as he was told, he was getting to his feet and picking up the bag one moment, and when Thorin looked back again he had disappeared without a trace.

The car was closer now, Thorin could see it was a jeep. And it looked well cared for too. Old, obviously, but clean. Deciding to take the risk, Thorin walked onto its way, his sword partially obscured at his back and his gun carefully tucked into his pants.

He stood in the middle of the road and opened his arms, waving and blocking the way, hoping the jeep would slow down.

It didn’t. The jeep came straight at Thorin until Thorin was forced to jump aside at the last moment, but he had seen that there was just a single driver on the wheel. A man, and he had drove right past Thorin even though it was obvious that Thorin was not a walker and obviously asking for help.

“Help us!” He yelled after the jeep, his hands in the air and the wind whipping his hair around. “We need help! Get back! Just a ride! Just a fucking ride!” But the jeep was already getting smaller and smaller on the horizon.

He breathed for a moment, looking after the jeep and yanking at his own hair in frustration.

Then he kicked the grass beneath his feet with all his might and screamed.

“Fuck you! Fuuckk youu!!! Fuuuckk!”

Eventually he dropped to the ground. He ached all over, he desperately needed some sleep and they had people on their trail who were, even if Bilbo refused to believe it, dangerous. The car would have the best thing that could have happened to them right now and it had just drove right by them. Thorin didn’t even know where anyone could get a car at this point. It wasn’t like the first few months or even maybe years of the outbreak, where you could simply jump start any car and drive. The batteries never lasted, petrol was extremely scarce and most cars had rotted away where they sat anyway. 

Only a select few had cars and a car usually meant exceptional resources. Thorin not only wanted a ride, he wanted to know where the well cared for jeep was coming from, or going to.

He didn’t know what to do now though. He knelt there for a moment, trying to calm down and collect his thoughts. Keep going. That was what he needed to do but it felt impossible at this point.

“What was that?” Bilbo asked and Thorin looked up to see the hobbit had come out of hiding and standing over Thorin.

“Nothing.” Thorin answered. “Absolutely not a fucking thing.”

“But thats alright.” Bilbo tried in a soothing voice. “Our plans didn’t include a car anyway, right? I mean your plans. Plan. So we can do what we were going to do anyway?”

Thorin didn’t answer.

“Uhm.. Which is...??” Bilbo tried to prompt him.

Thorin shook his head. He had no plan other than moving forward. But when he looked up at Bilbo the hobbit looked back at him with trust in his eyes, depending on Thorin to get them to safety.

He pulled himself to his feet.

“Which is to spend the night. We can’t go anywhere like this. We’ll build a barricade, over there.” He pointed to the small building. “And we’ll sleep. First thing we need is rest.”

He started to walk toward the building with Bilbo on his heels and he made short work of a single walker that was shambling out of the growth, possibly drawn by his scream earlier.

The interior of the single storey building was too crowded with broken furniture, clearly the place had been an office of some sort. There were cabinets and tables in every room. It worked to their advantage in building a barricade but barricades only worked for walkers and Thorin was both too tired to set a trap and had just lost most of his stuff at the hospital. They were far enough out of the city that Thorin would simply have gone to sleep with the barricade in place, if they didn’t have people at their tail. As it was, he had to come up with something and told as much to Bilbo while the hobbit was already trying to make himself comfortable curled into a corner and ready to sleep. After all, people used to say hobbits were good at hiding when they wanted to avoid being seen by the people of larger races.

\--

Thorin opened his eyes to absolute black, the feeling of Bilbo’s hair on his face which was now familiar, and the sounds of furniture dragging. Thorin listened to footsteps walk closer then slightly past them, he slowly raised a hand to cover Bilbo’s mouth in case the hobbit woke up and made a sound. Bilbo kept breathing into his palm calmly until the elves started to speak. When they did, their voices came less than two meter away.

“Yoklar. Boş burası.”(1)

“İzler burada bitiyo?”(2)

“Ne bileyim oğlum, bana mı soruyosun. Gitmişler demek ki. İyi bak.”(3)

Bilbo mouthed at Thorin’s palm so Thorin knew the hobbit was awake now but he didn’t pull his hand back until Bilbo licked it. Thorin snatched his hand away, the elves were still right there, talking over their heads and Bilbo wanted to play games?? But Bilbo this time started to tug on Thorin’s shirt where he could reach it. Thorin grabbed both the hobbits wrists and pulled them to his chest.

The elves kept talking for a little while longer, just a few minutes in which Bilbo kept thankfully still, listening, Thorin assumed. Then the footsteps retreated. Finally there was a little more shuffling and their hushed voices left the building, moving further and further away from them. 

When the voices were completely gone, Thorin practically exploded out of the cabinet they had been hiding in, causing Bilbo to fall on his ass under the table they had partially pulled in front of it.

It had been the hobbits idea to hide in it of course. The cabinet was big enough for the two of them to sleep in, curled upright together. They’d had to remove the shelves and the dusty files in it but they had been able to fit with Bilbo sitting half on top of Thorin. A big oak table was blocking the view of the cabinet anyway and it had worked. The elves hadn’t found them. It was still no excuse for what Bilbo had done.

“What the fuck did you think you were doing!?” Thorin hissed, looking down at the hobbit who was groaning and trying to pull himself to his feet.

“Relax. They didn’t find us. It’s fine.” Bilbo said as he stood up and started stretching.

“Bilbo! This is no game!” Thorin was trying really hard to stop himself from yelling.

Bilbo looked at him and scoffed a little. “Oh come on. They were already planning to leave. They thought we were already gone.”

“So you thought it was a good idea peek out to hello? No we haven’t left, you can kill us right here?”

Bilbo sighed. “Thorin, they don’t want to kill us. Look, they were talking about Alatar, alright? They think he’s still with us, and they’re just looking for their friend. If we explain what happened, that it was Alatar’s wish to-to...”

When Thorin opened his mouth to call Bilbo a number of names, Bilbo held up a hand, 

“I know you think I’m naive and stupid, but I heard them talk.” He pointed to himself, “Can speak Turkish, remember? Adan just wants to speak with us-”

At that, Thorin did interrupt Bilbo,

“Bilbo, even if they did at first, even if they have not found Alatar’s body, they know my trap killed one of their group and they must have seen it was just the two of us at the hospital. And anyway, a group of elves capable of tracking us this far, couldn’t have missed the corpse of their friend. There’s something wrong here. I’m not sure what exactly, but I know they will kill me the moment they see me and they will take you. No matter what you heard tonight, you can’t trust Adan! ”

“What’s wrong here is that we keep running from them! Shooting at them! As far as they know we disappeared with one of theirs. And you don’t trust anyone ever! Have you thought about how much safer we’d be if we just joined Adan’s group? Go to Silivri together? If there are boats to some mythical island there, don’t you think they’d like to go too? They deserve to leave too?

Thorin ran his hands through his hair and breathed in frustration.

“You’re right.” He said finally. “I do think you’re naive and stupid. If you think they just want to be friends with you, and sing songs while sailing into the sunset, you’re even stupider than you look. ”

Bilbo looked taken aback but Thorin was too angry to back down. He went to the cabinet and pulled out their bag.

“This is not a democracy.” He said and threw it to Bilbo, then picked up his weapons and started to strap the sword on his back and tucked the hand axe to his belt. “I’ve survived this long by myself and you will listen to me. We don’t need anyone. No more fooling around. We kill any of Adan’s group if we see them and we will keep walking. That’s the end of it.”

Then kicking the pieces of their barricade aside he stomped out, leaving Bilbo to follow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1): "They are not here. The place is empty."  
> (2): "But the trail ends here?"  
> (3): "Dude, how should I know? Clearly they left already. Check the trail again."


	11. Chapter 11

The hobbit was sulking. Not that Thorin looked to check. Much. Bilbo hadn’t argued any further, he had merely followed Thorin out and back onto the road in silence. Thorin’s anger ebbed away after a few hours. He still thought that Bilbo was being naive but how would the hobbit know any better? 

Sometimes, Rosa used to forget things. Forget how much danger they were actually in all the time. She’d make up stories, games when she was younger. Thorin supposed that was the only way that worked in dealing with constant stress, forget how horrible things actually were, get used to the horror and death, trivialize it. Otherwise, how could anyone deal with the life on the streets? Even then, Rosa had grown up beside Thorin, on the move for most of her life. Bilbo hadn’t even had that. One day he was comfortable and safe, in the next he was facing thirst, wild Men and rotting corpses walking around. Was he aware, or genuinely unaware of the threat the prospect of getting caught by elves presented?

Thorin shook his head, it was stupid anyway, what Bilbo had said about Adan and his elves. He could sulk all he wanted, Thorin trusted his gut. 

He was sure Adan already knew Alatar was dead and didn’t care even a little. If what Bilbo had said was true, if the elves that almost caught them had really been talking about finding Alatar, it could be just that Adan had lied to them. He was sure. So sure Adan was the bad guy here and not himself. Bilbo was wrong. Thorin was doing the right thing.

They lost sight of sea for a long while, taking a short cut on a highway rather than walking around the coast line. Next time they reached the seaside, Bilbo hadn’t spoken a single word yet and thankfully they hadn’t seen any elves. But Thorin was still cautious, the group was ahead of them now, he couldn’t guess by how much but he had prefferred taking the highway route for a couple of reasons, one was because it was shorter, according to the map, and another was that they had stuck to the coast line until now, if the elves decided to move forward after losing their trail, they would surely assume they kept on walking along the shore. But now he dared not go further inland. 

“They say there is electricity and even computers on the island that boats sail to.” Thorin started to speak, to break the silence, it was getting ridiculous. “They say the it’s small but self-sufficient. No walkers there. Completely clean.”

Bilbo didn’t respond or give any indication that he’d heard. Thorin sighed. “They may even be making chocolate there.” He said.

Bilbo snorted impolitely. Thorin frowned. He hadn’t meant it as a joke. He’d just thought, well, Bilbo was upset and chocolate had worked last time. Still, he supposed, it had sounded better in his head.

“Fine.” Thorin grumbled.

They could see a gas station a little further away, abandoned cars in front of it. It was as good a spot as any to stop and maybe even take a look inside for anything useful that might be left. They approached there in silence until Bilbo spoke up.

“Is that..?”

Thorin turned to see what Bilbo was looking at and immediately spotted what had surprised the hobbit. The jeep from the previous day. Still much cleaner than the abandoned cars around it. It had one door open and just sitting there, in the middle of the gas station that was surrounded by trees, the tracks of the jeep on the grass still looking fresh.

Thorin pulled Bilbo behind him as he moved to the side of the road, closer to the growth on the side. If the driver was around, he’d rather not make himself a clear target in the middle of the wide empty road. They didn’t see any movement inside the market but its windows were caked with grime where the glass was intact. And it was intact enough to block their sight. 

Thorin approached the side of the building cautiously, pulling Bilbo along with an iron grip on the hobbits arm. Maybe the driver had stopped to see if there was any gas left? Was it possible that anyone could be naive enough to think there’d be any? Maybe he had simply ran out of gas and left the jeep sitting there. But why would he park it at a gas station? He could’ve simply left the jeep in the middle of the road. Something wasn’t right.

“Stay here.” He whispered to Bilbo and moved toward the car. It looked about the same, no damages, no bullet holes, no obvious sign of a crash or that it had been pried open by a herd of walkers. The door on the driver side was open, so it meant the driver had got out on his own. Then Thorin heard a gunshot from inside the building and immediately bent down to take cover on the far side of the jeep. He looked toward Bilbo to check if the hobbit was still where he left him and yes, he was, looking terrified and fidgeting but Bilbo was keeping out of sight, pressed to the side wall of the market.

And then the elves walked out.

Two of them Thorin didn’t know their names. The third was Adan himself. They were talking calmly among themselves, Adan giving orders and they were walking towards the car. 

He had nowhere to run or hide, soon one of them would walk around the car to the driver side and find Thorin there. And even if the hobbit hid or ran, it wouldn’t take a genius to realize Bilbo would be close too. Without giving it much thought Thorin stood up and walked out.

One of the elves immediately nocked an arrow and the other raised his gun. Adan raised a hand to stop the others and looked at him for a second, his eyes rowing over Thorin, then quickly darting around. Thorin knew what the elf was looking for.

“Master dwarf.” Adan said as if it was a pleasant surprise to see Thorin. Which Thorin didn’t doubt it was for the elf. This had been the dumbest way he could have walked into a trap, intentionally set trap or not.

“Where is your little friend? We’ve been wanting to speak to you, but you’ve been rather elusive.”

Thorin growled and forced himself not to look toward where Bilbo was hiding and give away the hobbit. 

“Speak than.” He gritted out, “Say what you want and leave us alone. If you want to know about Alatar, he’s not with us.”

“Oh. Yes. Alatar. We do miss him.” Adan said in a sad tone that dripped mockery, then added, “And of course Tari is worried sick, I’m sure she’d appreciate any news of her brother. Why don’t you call your friend and we can all sit and talk.”

“Stop it.” Thorin barked harshly, angry, angrier than he’d been in a long while. Thorin didn’t know which made him angrier, the way Adan kept bringing Bilbo up or the way he was clearly mocking Alatar’s death...“Stop your lies. I know you want Bilbo.”

“I don’t know what you mean.” Adan said and gestured to the others to lower their weapons. “I simply meant to offer you friendship.” Then Adan’s voice got a little strained, “But you, you took what was mine.”

“Alatar wasn’t yours. He wanted to come with us.” Thorin replied instinctively.

“I’m not talking about Alatar.” Adan said and Thorin saw red.

He had his gun out and trained on the elf in the blink of an eye and of course the other two elves standing behind Adan raised their weapons. Thorin froze with his finger tight on the trigger.

“Master dwarf, surely you must realize there is no way you can come out of a shoot out alive. We’d all rather avoid a mess. Besides, what would the hobbit do if he lost his fierce protector?”

If Thorin killed Adan now, his lackies would surely kill Thorin. Thorin realized with a jolt that he wouldn’t have cared much, if it didn’t mean leaving Bilbo alone. Adan had read him more accurately than Thorin did himself. The elf was too clever, razor sharp and knew just where to apply pressure. Now he was flinging in Thorin’s face a fact that Thorin had avoided looking at too closely. Thorin always survived, without knowing why. And survival didn’t mean much compared to a reason to live. Like before he had lost Rosa. He would have gladly died for Rosa. What would he do for Bilbo? 

Adan was looking at him with a raised eyebrow and Thorin could feel sweat running down his back as he frantically tried to think.

“Wait! Wait! Stop!”

No! Mahal, no! 

Bilbo had just walked around the corner, out of his hiding spot and was approaching Thorin with his hands raised. Thorin’s gun drooped in his hand.

“Ah! Here is Mr Bilbo Baggins.” Adan smiled widely. Thorin both wanted to grab Bilbo and run, and smack him. Yet he could do nothing but watch as the hobbit walked right in between them.

“Yes, hello, uhm if we could just, you know, stop with the threatening and the pointing of weapons..” The hobbit said, nervous with his hands still in the air in a placating gesture.

Adan signalled his elves to lower their weapons once more. Thorin hesitated.

Bilbo looked over at Thorin.

“Thorin, please.”

At that Thorin had no choice but to lower his gun, but he didn’t tuck it away, ready to defend them both at any moment. If he could just grab Bilbo...

“Listen.. Adan, I’m so sorry for what happened. So incredibly sorry about Daeron, that was an unfortunate accident, that trap was set for walkers. Not-not for.. I mean.. And Alatar.. You have to understand it wasn’t Thorin’s fault. It wasn’t. I was mad at him too. But it was Alatar’s choice..”

Bilbo babbled. He looked like he could go on too if Adan didn’t interrupt him.

“Mr Baggins,” Adan started in a too kind voice, “I’m glad to see that you are well. I am sure you have a lot to tell us. But this is not the best place for this conversation, I’m sure all you have to say is very important. We could go back to our camp. We have a car now, it wouldn’t take long. Your dwarf friend is welcome too. We never meant any harm. I’m sure he’ll understand that eventually.”

To Thorin’s horror Bilbo smiled, and dropped his hands, his shoulders sagging in clear relief.

“Yes, yes, of course.” Said Bilbo at the same time as Thorin said “No.” 

Bilbo shot him an annoyed look and Thorin took a step towards him but stopped when Bilbo stepped back.

“Thorin I’m sick and tired of running. And running from what? Towards what? ”

“Bilbo..”

“No. Just no. This stops right here and now. I told you Adan only wanted to talk. We’ll tell him..” Then Bilbo visibly pulled himself upright and made a decision, “I will tell him.. what happened with Alatar. I don’t want to run anymore. So are you coming with us, or not?”

Thorin felt like he was punched in the gut. He could see Adan smirking behind Bilbo. He looked at Bilbo dumbly for a moment, uncomprehending.

The frost in Bilbo’s eyes melted a little in the face of Thorin’s shock. He felt betrayed.

“Thorin please. You don’t have to do this. You don’t have run all the time. Just come with us and..”

“No.” Thorin choked out again. How, how could Bilbo believe this elf? How could Thorin stop him? 

“Fine.” Bilbo said impatiently and turned to Adan.

Thorin wanted to say no, yell no, wanted to pull Bilbo away from the vile elf but how? If Bilbo wanted to go how could he stop the hobbit? Would he be any better than Adan if he manipulated Bilbo to go with him, or flat out kidnapped the hobbit? He knew he couldn’t anyway. He could just watch.

Adan was ushering Bilbo towards the car and one of the other elves walked past Thorin to get into the driver seat. Bilbo looked resigned now. He had made up his mind, yet still he turned to glance at Thorin as he walked. Like he was hoping Thorin would change his mind. 

“What happened to the driver.” Thorin heard coming out of his mouth. He had nothing else to say, no words that could make Bilbo stay with him. But he felt like this was something important. Just one more thing wrong with Adan. One last thing.

“This car, we’ve seen it before. A Man was driving it. What happened to him?”

Bilbo had been moving to get into the backseat but he stopped and turned to look at Adan questioningly.

Adan put a hand on Bilbo’s shoulder and waved the other impatiently,

“Oh there was an unfortunate disagreement. We had to defend ourselves. He didn’t survive.”  
“You killed him??” Bilbo asked, his voice going a little high in alarm.

Adan’s hand tightened on Bilbo’s shoulder, Thorin wanted to cut it off for even touching his hobbit but could only watch as the elf forced himself to stay calm.

“We were forced to. We didn’t mean to resort to such dire measures but the situation gets out of hand sometimes, you understand.”

“Convenient.” Thorin murmured and Bilbo looked at Thorin uncertainly, questioning his judgement about Adan for the first time.

“Not how I would put it!” Adan bit out, finally starting to loose his serene mask.

Bilbo fidgeted under Adan’s grip.

“I.. I’m not sure if I’m comfortable with..”

“Just get in the car Bilbo. There’s nothing we can do for the driver now.” Adan gritted his teeth and started to practically push Bilbo inside. Bilbo slipped into the backseat but he looked less sure of his decision now, his eyes wide as he looked at Thorin out of the window. 

Adan didn’t immediately step into the car, first he leaned in close to the elf that was holding the bow and said something to him. The elf nodded and only then Adan got into the car. 

Thorin had started to turn his back on them, unable to watch Adan leave with Bilbo. What would he do now? Where would he go? What was the point of going to Silivri anymore? Had he made a mistake? Surely, he must have made a mistake, he should have been kinder to the hobbit. He had called him stupid, he had.. kissed and touched Bilbo. Sex didn’t make the hobbit his, Thorin knew, but Thorin definitely felt like something had. Except Bilbo had made his decision. 

It didn’t mean much, shouldn’t mean much, he could go back to scavanging stuff from malls. Go inland as he had planned. But it all felt hollow. Especially after what Adan had said. What would Bilbo do if Thorin died? Obviously, nothing, it didn’t matter because the hobbit didn’t need or want him anymore. The real question for Thorin now, was what would Thorin do without Bilbo? No one needed him, once more he was losing the only good thing, one small, kind person that saw all the pretty things Thorin missed. The taste of food, color of money, value of other peoples lives, and the joy of sex. Practically everything that was worth surviving for.

He heard the rumble of the engine start and forced himself to start walking away. Counting his steps, his mind a jumble of what he should have done differently.  
He was trying to breathe when he heard Bilbo yell his name, high and desperate.

“THORIN!!!!! NOO!!”

He whipped around but it was too late. He felt the piercing pain of an arrow sinking into his shoulder, hard enough to push him off his feet. Thorin fell.

“Noo!! Thorinn!! NO!”

Trees were a blur over his head for a moment, the sun was in his eyes and it hurt. His arm went numb and all was pain. Bilbo was screaming.

“Adan no.. Let.. Let me go! Thorin!” 

Bilbo needed him. Thorin blinked to clear his vision, raised a hand to feel the shaft of the arrow, his hand came away bloody. Bilbo kept screaming. 

He made himself roll over, then with enormous effort, pushed himself onto his feet. The car was some meters away but he could see that there was a struggle going on inside it. The young elf had been getting into the car but he stopped when he saw Thorin wasn’t dead and was getting back on his feet.

Bilbo’s cries echoed in Thorin’s head. He fumbled to grab his gun with his good hand and raised it. Adan was partially blocked as he struggled with Bilbo in the backseat but the young elf was already nocking another arrow to his bow.

He didn’t hesitate to put a bullet right in the elfs chest. The elf hit the ground, then he immediately aimed at the second one, who was getting out of the driver seat. His focus was getting sharper, adrenalin pumping through his veins. But the second elf dropped his weapon, a shocked expression on his face so Thorin dismissed him as harmless and turned to shoot Adan, kill him before the pain of the arrow in his shoulder got too much. He breathed and tried to calm himself lest he hit Bilbo. And when he had his shot, he pulled the trigger.

The gun let out an empty click. Then several more empty clicks as Thorin pulled the trigger frantically. Bilbo was putting up a fair fight while Adan was both struggling to keep Bilbo down and shouting orders at the second elf.

“Cüceyi öldür! Öldür! Alsana silahını, durmasana gerizekalı-”(1)

But then Adan went abruptly still, his shouting interrupted by a wet gurgle. Thorin held his breath, the moment stretched on and then, impossibly, the door of the backseat opened and Bilbo kicked Adan out. The elf dropped to the ground.

Bilbo jumped out of the backseat of the car and staggered a few steps to the side to get away from Adan’s kneeling form on the ground. The elf turned to follow Bilbo, reached out a hand to him and Thorin saw Bilbo’s dagger stuck in his throat. 

Blood gushed as Adan’s hands first reached for Bilbo than moved ineffectively to his own throat, clawing at the blade as he choked on his own blood.

Both Thorin and Bilbo watched as Adan’s movements slowed, mouth gaped soundlessly in shock and then he stopped completely. His sightless eyes still trained on the hobbit.

Thorin turned to look at the second elf before running to Bilbo, yet as the elf bent down to pick up his gun a walker came out of nowhere and sank its teeth into the elfs shoulder. The elf went down screaming. 

Thorin was running past Bilbo in a second, axe already in hand. He cleaved the walkers head in two, then turned to go to his hobbit.

He had just reached him when Bilbo wrapped himself to Thorin’s good side, the side that didn’t have an arrow sticking out of.

“He was going to kill you. He gave the order to kill you. You had your back to us and.. You didn’t see, he was going to...“

Thorin tried to hush Bilbo and pet him where he could reach but he never had the time to do much more, in the next moment Bilbo flung himself from Thorin to drop on all fours and start puking his guts out.

Thorin wanted to go help him. At least say something, but felt a wave of dizziness wash over him. Adan was dead. The elves were scattered and Bilbo was here. Bilbo was fine. Bilbo wanted to stay with Thorin. He had even killed Adan himself. To save Thorin’s life.

Thorin dropped to the ground as darkness started creep around the edges of his vision.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1): "Kill the dwarf! Kill him! Pick up your gun, don't just stand there, idiot-"


	12. Chapter 12

Soft hands were on his face, holding and shaking gently, a panicked voice was calling his name.

Thorin opened his eyes.

“Oh thank god! Thank you! Thorin.. Thorin look at me..”

Thorin’s eyes focused on Bilbo and Bilbo’s hands left his face to flutter over his chest. Thorin felt a deep ache in his shoulder and couldn’t remember for a moment.

Oh. Right. The damned arrow.

Everything came back to Thorin in a rush and he sat up, then grimaced. The world tilted for a moment then righted itself as Bilbo fussed over him.

“Are you alright? You scared me to death! We need.. uhm we need gauze.. And and.. I don’t know, we need to get the arrow out? We need to stop the bleeding. Thorin?”

Thorin shook his head and when he looked back at Bilbo the hobbit was staring at him, looking paler than usual, eyes wide with worry, there was a bruise on the corner of his mouth and bags under his eyes. He was beautiful. 

Ignoring the pain and slight dizziness, Thorin grabbed him by the back of his neck and pulled Bilbo in for a fierce kiss. It was a short kiss, life affirming and just what Thorin needed. Proof that Bilbo was here with him. When he let go, it left Bilbo looking stunned and even more adorable than a moment ago.

“It hurts.” Thorin told him, “But I’ll be fine. Don’t worry.”

Bilbo ducked his head at that, then pulled off his vest to press around Thorin’s wound. Thorin grimaced in pain.

“Are you hurt? The walkers. I killed one but didn’t see more.” Thorin said. “Were there..?”

“Don’t worry.” Bilbo said, “Just a couple more. I handled it.”

Thorin spotted his axe laying on the grass closeby, it was bloody. He chuckled then groand as the movement jarred the arrow.

Bilbo frowned at him, then to Thorin’s horror his eyes filled with tears.

“You were right. You were right all along. I was so stupid. So, so stupid. And I left you there. Thorin I’m so sorry. You can’t even imagine how..” Bilbo started saying as he pressed on the wound, hoping to stop the bleeding which was sluggish now.

Thorin hushed Bilbo this time. He ran his good hand over Bilbo’s hair, just glad that he was alive to feel how soft it was under his fingers. Bilbo sobbed for a while, in remorse and self pity. Eventually he wiped his eyes and tried to pull himself together.

“It’ll be alright. It’ll be fine..” Thorin was saying, he didn’t know how long he had been out cold, he didn’t know how much blood he had already lost. Then he realised.

“Bilbo. It’s really going to be alright. Look.” He gestured to the jeep.

“We have a car now.”

Bilbo’s head snapped up in realization.

“Yes! Yes, of course! Thorin! We should go to Silivri, they can help you there. If all you’ve heard is true, they must have doctors there too! Medical facilities, everything!”

Bilbo grabbed Thorin’s hand and made him keep pressing on the wound, then scrambled to his feet to find the bag they had dropped at some point, find the map.

Thorin slumped where he sat, his pain somehow getting worse when Bilbo wasn’t touching him. It didn’t take Bilbo long to return with it.

“We must be here.” Bilbo put a finger on Beylikdüzü. “Not far at all. We can be there in less than an hour!” 

Thorin nodded tiredly, it was true. If the rumors were true of course. At this point, Thorin didn’t want to think what would happen if they were not.

“Help me up.” He told Bilbo and Bilbo did. He helped Thorin to the car too then slipped into the driver seat. Thorin was feeling too exhausted. He suspected blood loss was taking its toll on him.

Bilbo’s feet dangled uselessly though, not quite able to reach the pedals. Thorin held in mad laughter. Not only because it would have been rude, but also because any movement sent shocks of pain down his spine.

“I never drove a car before.” Bilbo said miserably.

“It’s easy.” Thorin rolled his head to look at the backseat, then out the window. “Find some boxes. And you can sit on the backpack.”

It took another ten minutes for Bilbo to collect various bits and bobs to put on the pedals and on the seat to raise himself. There were hobbit and dwarf sized cars but wishing for one would have been pushing their luck. When it looked like the hobbit could at least push the gas and brakes Thorin started to tell him what to do. 

They didn’t need to jump start the car because the keys were still on it. Bilbo had to slip down the seat to put the car in gear but after that all he needed to do was drive in a straight line, follow the road. Thorin breathed through the painful grind of the gears when Bilbo first hit the gas pedal. Bilbo swore lightly and apologised, then they pulled onto the road. At least there were no other cars they could crash into.

\--

Thorin dozed a couple of times but each time he woke to Bilbo worriedly trying to keep both an eye on him and the road, so he forced himself to stay awake. The road wasn’t very interesting and he did need something to keep his mind off the pain so his good hand started to wander. Pulling down the shades, looking into the nooks and cranies of the car for any sign of its origin. He found what he was looking for in the glove compartment.

It was a map. Old and a little worn out but intact. It was a map of an island, a place he had never seen before. There were photos of people alongside it, of a few women, one man child, one dwarf child and.. hobbits. A couple of elderly hobbits smiling at the camera. The photos looked old and Thorin was no expert but he could swear that they weren’t 50 years old. The clothes on the people were nothing like what he remembered from his childhood either, but they were still clean and fine.

“Bilbo..” He breathed in awe,

“Hmm?” The hobbit merely glanced at Thorin, now sure that Thorin wasn’t about to pass out or die.

“Look at these.. How.. How old do you think these photos are?” Thorin held them up.

“What are those?” Bilbo squinted between glances at the road and the photos of the women. “I don’t know?”

“Guess.” Thorin pushed.

Bilbo frowned.  
“You think they are new?” Bilbo looked at the photos again. “What does that mean? Someone who has a working car may as well have a working camera.”

Thorin didn’t say anything, he just held up the photo of the hobbits.

The car swerved for a second then Bilbo immediately righted it.

“Is that..? Does that mean... I mean.. My god..”

“I don’t know.” Thorin said this time, putting the photo away so as not to distract Bilbo further. “But.. I think going to Silivri was the right decision.”

“Thorin!” Bilbo bounced a little excitedly on his seat, “But this is great news! I’ll meet hobbits! Hobbits! It is true than, what you heard about the boats in Silivri, and the island? They’ll fix you there too! Do you think-”

“Watch the road.“ Thorin interrupted him. He didn’t like how much this brought Bilbo’s hopes up. A couple of photos didn’t prove anything.

Bilbo did but he couldn’t stop smiling.

“I bet they are even better off than Dr Elrond’s camp. We didn’t have cars there. Not since I was a child anyway. I wonder what else is there... More hobbits? Do you think they have these hobbit holes in the hills? Are there hills on the island? Oh they must have tobacco too! I miss that..”

In his excitement Bilbo seemed to have lost his filter, jumbling together images of everything he hoped. Thorin didn’t have the heart to put him down more firmly. His head ached badly and his arm was numb. The bleeding had slowed down considerably but Thorin didn’t dare pull off the vest to check. The arrow shaft was still holding the wound open. Best case scenario, everything would turn out rainbows and puppies in Silivri, he could get a doctor to treat him. Worst case scenario, he would have to fight the real owners of the car, with an arrow sticking out of his shoulder. Which he knew he couldn’t. If they did find boats and people in Silivri they would have some fast explaining to do. The fact that Bilbo was a hobbit would surely help but they had no proof that they hadn’t just killed the driver and stolen the car.

“We need to be careful.” He said when Bilbo stopped to take breath. “We don’t really know what’s there. If they think we stole the car.. They will have better weapons. I can’t fight like this.”

Bilbo was silent for a while. Then he said, “You won’t have to. I have a good feeling about this. They won’t be bad people. Something has to go right eventually.”

Thorin had to smile at that. 

“We’ll see.” He said then groaned a little as he moved to sit a little straighter, serious again, “Just.. Let’s not drop our guard.”

\--

It had been about 45 minutes, the car had a clock, when Bilbo yelped and started pointing to a sign,

“There! There! It’s the enterance to the marina! It has to be here! The boats!” 

Thorin squinted to focus his vision which had gone a little blurry. Along the sea shore ahead of them he could see remains of small boats, none looked to be in any condition to sail. But that didn’t mean much. The coastline had been full of such half sunken boats. They needed to find the boat that still worked and he was sure who ever operated them wouldn’t just tie the boats to any old post along the shore. It would be guarded, out of sight. 

Bilbo was approaching the gates of the Marina and slowing down as he entered the abandoned parking lot. They had seen walkers on the streets since they had entered the town but curiously there were none in the parking lot. Thorin couldn’t tell if that was good or bad. It could be meaningless, just coincidence, or it could mean that the place was guarded, possibly by snipers or something like that. If it was, Thorin knew they would also already be spotted at this point. It was getting dark, but not dark enough that they wouldn’t be clear targets.

Bilbo stopped the car with a jolt, in front of iron bar gates. Thorin put a hand to his chest to stop him before the hobbit got out of the car. 

There were no growth around the gates, the tracks that the gate was supposed to roll on as the doors opened looked clean. They were in use. Still there was no one around yet. 

“Uh.. Thorin?” Bilbo asked after stopping the car. “What do we do now?”

“Wait. I think.” Thorin said, still keeping an eye out for any sort of movement.

Bilbo turned to look at him and he had a worried look on his face.

“For how long? It doesn’t look like anyone is here... Should we leave? Try to look for another enterance? Maybe this is not the right place at all.”

“It is the right place.”

Bilbo sat still for a moment, thinking in silence. Then he put a hand on Thorin’s good shoulder to lean over him to lift the edge of the vest that was covering his wound.

“Thorin.. I don’t think we can afford to just wait like this. At the very least we need to get the arrow out. Maybe if we checked around the area..?”

“The tracks are clean, the parking lot is clean. There are people here and they know we’re here. We’ll be fish in the barrell out there.”

Bilbo huffed, throwing his hands in the air. “Why did we come here at all, if you think they'll just kill us on sight!?”

“I never planned to show up with THEIR stolen car!”

“We can explain!” Bilbo yelled in Thorin’s face, then without waiting for an answer opened the door and got out.

“Hello!” Bilbo started calling out, turning this way and that, lookig over the empty buildings, “Is there anyone out there? My friend is hurt! He needs help! Anyone around?”

Thorin swore and struggled to open the door for a moment then pushed himself out.

“Bilbo!”  
He was dizzy, standing up didn’t work well for him. But leaning on the car he forced himself to stay alert.

“Hello?!” Bilbo was yelling. 

Thorin saw movement close to one of the buildings and at the same time he did, Bilbo did too. Someone was coming out. Bilbo laughed in relief and started toward the person that was walking out toward them. In the twilight they couldn’t see if it was an elf or a man but he was tall.

“Hey! Hello!” 

“Bilbo, get back!” Thorin called for him but Bilbo didn’t listen. Still it took only a moment to realize the person walking out was a walker. 

“Oh..” Bilbo’s disappointment was actually worse than a single slow walker coming at them. Thorin tried to pushed off the car and walk to Bilbo to kill the walker but it turned out he didn’t need to. Shoulders slumped, Bilbo walked back, pulled out Thorin’s sword and stabbed it through the eye. The walker crumpled to the ground. 

He turned to Thorin. 

“That was a disappointment.”

“I told you, we better..”

But he trailed off when he saw more walkers come out from between the buildings, along the road. Not a herd by a long shot but too many for Bilbo to handle alone.

“Give me that.” Thorin pulled his sword from Bilbo’s hand. “Get in the car.”

“Thorin, no way. You can’t fight in your condition.”

“Get in the damn car!” Thorin shouted then pushed Bilbo in through the open door. Bilbo flailed for a moment but got back to his feet.

“No! Don’t be an idiot! You can barely stand!”

Thorin looked at the five or six walkers closing in on them, the open lot affording them some space still. If he still had his gun, this would have gone much easier. 

He tried the weight of his sword in his good hand but it felt heavier than usual, imbalanced. He still had his axe too but he could use only one arm. But the real problem was that he couldn’t move with the arrowhead still in his shoulder.

“You want to help? Fine.”

Thorin walked a few steps and cut the head off the closest walker, then returned to put his back to the car.

“Help me pull out the arrow.” He said.

“What?! Now!?” Bilbo looked bewildered.  
“Yes, now! I can’t move like this!”

“You’ll bleed to death!”

“I can kill them all fast, without the fucking thing digging further with my every move.”

Thorin tried to keep an eye on walkers that were closest but he could see further away, more were walking into the parking lot. He stabbed another one that had reached the car. Soon they would be trapped in a crowd, unable to pick them off one by one.

“You can wrap me up when its done, stop the bleeding once and for all.” 

Bilbo looked unsure, “I can use the axe..”

“No you can’t. Not if they come at you all at once. We don’t have time.”

Thorin ripped the vest off his chest before another walker came too close. It was caked with half clotted blood, ruined. Putting the sword down for a moment he gripped the shaft of the arrow but his hand was trembling. He really needed Bilbo to do this.

The hobbits hands fluttered around it for a moment.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes!”

“Alright.” Bilbo closed his eyes, and breathed deep for a second. When he opened his eyes, he looked completely steady.

Thorin was expecting the hobbit to grab and yank the arrow out but that was not what Bilbo did at all. He did grab the shaft, then to Thorin’s surprise picked up the sword and started to saw off the feathered end.

“What are you doing?” He asked through gritted teeth, the move jarred the arrowhead and it fucking hurt.

“You don’t pull arrows out. It rips the tissue.”

“Bilbo, I told you to-”

Bilbo broke the end and threw it onto the ground, then looked at Thorin.

“You never pull it out. You push it through.”

Then before Thorin could comprehend what he was saying, he grabbed the sawed off end and did exactly that, pushing as hard as he could in a single motion, piercing through Thorin’s shoulder. Thorin screamed. In the next moment, Bilbo had already pulled the arrow out from Thorin’s back, and was busy wrapping his own shirt around it. Thorin’s knees threatened to give out, the pain was blinding. He slumped over the car and breathed. Before his vision could focus back Bilbo had already raised the sword to kill another walker that was dumbly trying to reach over the hood of the car.

“We don’t have time. We need to kill them all, now! I need to wrap you up properly.” Bilbo said when the walker dropped on the hood. Another was already close.

Thorin could feel blood trickling down his back but adrenalin won over and with a shake of his head he pulled himself together as much as possible. Dwarves were a hardy folk, thank Mahal. Thorin imagined with the amount of pain he was in and the amount of blood he’d lost, an elf would be long passed out. Not a dwarf though. Not Thorin. He pulled out his axe and with a roar pushed himself off the car. He charged into a group of three, hacking and slicing. 

Bilbo was holding his own fairly well but more walkers were coming. Forcing them to pull back towards the car. Thorin swung the axe until he couldn’t any longer but he had miscalculated. He could feel cold creeping into his limbs, shock settling in. More walkers were coming.

Eventually he had to call for Bilbo to get in the car. They would have to drive away before the walkers bocked their way. But even as he thought it, he knew it may already be too late. He tried to make his way to Bilbo who was swinging the sword just a couple of steps away with his back to the car but more walkers seemed to materialize with each one he killed.

Then he heard Bilbo scream. He tried to look but all he could see was the backs of the walkers covering the hobbit. 

No.

That was when a shot rang out, over the gurglings of the walkers, and a walker that had been about to bite Thorin while he was too busy trying to tear his way to Bilbo to notice, dropped.

Then more shots. Walkers around Bilbo dropped too, revealing the hobbit holding a thick, broken tree branch as a shield.

The walkers started to drop dead around them. Thorin couldn’t tear his eyes off of Bilbo to look and see who was doing the shooting. For a moment he had thought the hobbit had gotten bit. That he had failed.

When there were no more gurgling and all the walkers around them were dead, Thorin clutched at Bilbo, his legs giving out. Bilbo followed him to the ground and knelt next to him.

“Are you alright? Are you bit? You’re not hurt?” Thorin asked running his single hand over the hobbit, through blood and gore, unable to tell if any of it was Bilbo’s blood. The hobbit dropped the branch to the ground and tried to grab Thorin’s hand to still it’s frantic movement.

“No. No I’m not hurt. Just panicked. That one almost bit me. Who was that? Who was shooting the walkers?”

But before Thorin could even shake his head that he didn’t know, a bright, white light shone on them. They both raised their arms to shield their eyes.

Thorin pulled Bilbo closer, even though he knew it was pointless. He had kown the place wasn’t empty, the gates were manned. And he had just fought to the last drop of his blood. He didn’t think whoever had killed the walkers meant to kill them too. They could have already done it, if they wanted. But still, if they wanted Thorin and Bilbo dead, there was nothing Thorin could do to stop them.

A silhouette of a man appeared in the middle of the bright light, walking to them, then stopped, towering over both the hobbit and the dwarf on the ground. When he spoke, he sounded calm, completely confident that he had them beat.

“Now that I’ve saved your lives, I’d like an explanation. An honest one. What are you doing with my brothers car, and where is my brother?”


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uhm.. Yeah.. Warnings..

It felt a bit like a dream. The silhouette of the man, the light, the cold... Bilbo’s hands on Thorin were the only warm spots he could feel and it took him a couple of seconds to understand what the man was saying.

The car of course. He remembered he had some explaining to do but he couldn’t gather his thoughts well enough to answer. He couldn’t think too hard, at least not beyond the point of making sure Bilbo was alright.

Bilbo was fidgeting next to Thorin, his arms all over him, tangled in his hair, roaming over his arms and chest, then pressing into his wound, hurting him. Thorin distantly remembered Bilbo meant to stop the bleeding. So much bleeding though, he had bled too much.

“Your brother...” Bilbo breathed, still trying to catch his breath and once more, Thorin didn’t immediately catch on that the hobbit was talking to the silhouette.

“We-we can explain. Everything. We didn’t.. I mean.. Look it’s a long story, we didn’t even see your brother. Can you please.. Please help my friend? He’s bleeding. He was hurt when we arrived, I don’t think he has much time.. We’ll tell you what happened, but please...”

The man didn’t answer for a while and Bilbo’s pleading was getting more and more frantic. Thorin stopped him.

“Bilbo.. I’m fine.” He didn’t sound very fine, even to his own ears but it didn’t matter. He wanted to make Bilbo stop.

And Bilbo did but instead of answering, the man said, unfazed, “I thought all hobbits on the mainland were dead.”

“Yes! No! I mean I don’t know.. For sure. Can we talk about this later??”

Bilbo was getting angry, Thorin could hear it in his tone, he didn’t need to look. But they needed to stay calm, they didn’t want a fight. With a last effort he sat up and gently pulled Bilbo’s hands off of himself.

“He is the last hobbit. You have to take him. To the island.”

The man cocked his head to the side,  
“How do you know about the island?”

“Rumors.” Thorin said tiredly.  
For a long, tense moment the man stood silent and still. Then he gestured behind him and the light moved, allowing Thorin and Bilbo to blink and see the man when their eyes adjusted. 

He looked to be about in his forties, dressed all in black, or it seemed so in the dark. He had some sort of armor on, strike force armor? It looked new too. How heavily was the marina really guarded? 

Other men and women started to appear behind him but Thorin didn’t pay them much attention. The man spoke a couple of words with what seemed to be his team, then turned and walked to Thorin to crouch in front of him. Look him in the eye.

“Tell me what happened to my brother.” He said. And Thorin knew, this man here would get the truth, weather he liked it or not. No need to beat around the bush. He was too tired to be diplomatic anyway.

“He’s dead.” Thorin said. “Killed by a group of elves. We didn’t see. But we heard the gunshot. We killed the leader of the elves.” He gestured to Bilbo with his head. “He did. I got shot by an arrow. So we took the car.”

The man sneered, clearly trying to suppress his anger. But he managed. Somewhat.

“And why should I believe you?”

“Look it’s not our fault!” Bilbo yelled in his impatience. “If you don’t believe us you can tie us, whatever, take us to your camp. Fix Thorin, then you can ask all the questions you want!”

Thorin ignored Bilbo, just as the man did.

“Believe me or don’t. You are not going to leave the last hobbit here to die.” Thorin stated clearly. “If you need someone to blame for your brothers death, you can blame me.”

“Thorin no! It’s not your fault.. He didn’t! He didn’t..”

Bilbo was babbling again, listing his objections, trying to tell what really happened in disjointed, jumbled sentences in his panic. Thorin didn’t bother listening. The man didn’t seem to be sympathizing well with Bilbo either. But he did seem to be weighing Thorin’s words seriously, considering his options.

Finally he spoke, “We watched you come to our door. We almost did open the gates too. But when we realized it wasn’t my brother behind the wheel... You both owe your lives to my commander. Common procedure. We never kill the people that come to our door. We don’t want people to know we’re here, you understand. We waited for you to get bored and leave.”

Now Bilbo was listening with rapt attention though Thorin thought he already knew how this little speech would end.

“But you didn’t, did you. A dwarf is nothing if not stubborn. ” Then he turned to Bilbo, “And a hobbit is nothing if not fatally optimistic.”

Bilbo opened his mouth to object but the man went on, raising his voice a little to speak over Bilbo, “I have my orders. You’re right, I can’t leave a hobbit here to die. I have no such orders concerning a dwarf.”

Thorin closed his eyes in relief.

“No! NO! I refuse! If Thorin’s not coming, I’m not going!” Bilbo shouted. Thorin could feel the hobbit squeezing his arm too tight.

The man stood up and gestured to his team. A man and a women walked forward to grab Bilbo and take him away. Bilbo kicked and screamed with all his might, even managing to land some punches. Thorin reached out for him.

“Wait! Wait! Let me.. Let me talk to him. Say goodbye. He’ll come with you.”

The others looked at their commander and when he nodded, they let go of Bilbo. Bilbo was at his side at once, clutching at Thorin,

“Thorin no! I won’t go! How can you even expect me to-”

“Hush.” Thorin was too tired and too cold now. The last of the adrenalin had left his body, the arrow had missed major arteries but he had lost too much blood with the effort he put in killing the walkers. He felt he was already beyond the point of medical help. His body was going into shock, his extremities tingling, he was starting to feel sleepy.

Bilbo looked at him with huge, blue eyes, filled with desperation, but he stopped talking. He was so beautiful, even with blood and dirt smeared across his face. So beautiful that Thorin wanted to cry. He wished he could see Bilbo smile, one more time but knew it was impossible. 

The moment Bilbo had gotten into the car with Adan, he had known what he would do for Bilbo. Anything. He would do anything. It was simple really. On the car ride Thorin had considered the possibility that the people at Silivri might not want Thorin. After all, what was another dwarf who had already grown too old compared to the life span of people on the streets. He had been aware of the possibility of getting killed for delivering Bilbo to the gates, to keep the secret of the marina safe. 

Initially he had planned to just drop the hobbit off at Silivri, and leave. Then when Bilbo had kissed him the first time, it had become impossible to leave the hobbit. He had known all along that he would take the risk of trying the gates for himself. And now, he was simply happy that the rumors were all true. Bilbo wouldn’t need him anymore. They would probably question him, interrogate him harshly for a while, before accepting him. But they would accept the hobbit. Bilbo would get to meet other hobbits, and smoke tobacco and eat chocolate and live happily ever after. Thorin would make sure of it, and while he had inevitably decided to take the risk, he had made his plan.

“It’ll be alright Bilbo. I have a plan.” He told the hobbit, raising his good hand to touch the hobbits dirty cheek. Bilbo leaned into Thorin’s palm. “I’ll... I’ll sneak in. Let them think that they can only take you. We have to let them think I agree to stay behind. Then I’ll find a way to sneak in.”

But Bilbo was shaking his head. 

“No Thorin. The place is too heavily guarded.” Bilbo whispered, “And your wound..” Thorin didn’t want to see the pain on Bilbo’s face but he couldn’t look away.

“I.. I think the bleeding stopped already. And the arrow is out. Give me a few days. Go with them, and give me a few days. I’ll heal and then come after you. You’ll see.” Then he forced himself to smile, “I’m a dwarf. Mahal made us to endure. This is nothing.”

Bilbo looked doubtful.

“Thorin I can’t leave you like this. I don’t want to and I won’t. This is a stupid plan.”

Thorin laughed but he was so tired. No sound came out, just a small shake of his shoulders. “I know. But I always survive. One way or the other, I always manage.”

Then he pulled Bilbo into a lingering kiss. The hobbits lips were soft under the earthy taste. Bilbo responded eagerly, kissing Thorin like the kiss could somehow convince Thorin to change his mind. Like Bilbo could keep Thorin by his side if he kissed him with enough desperation and longing, with enough passion, with enough love.

Thorin was dizzy but he didn’t know if it was because of the kiss or not. He liked to think so. He ran his hand through Bilbo’s hair, down his arms. Then when they broke apart, he raised the hobbits hands to his lips and kissed his palms too.

“Go with the Men. I’ll be right behind you. They can’t stop me.”

Tears shimmered in Bilbo’s eyes but after a moment the hobbit nodded. Thorin waited for Bilbo to leave. His selfish half hoping he would refuse but knowing that if Bilbo did, he would do anything to convince the hobbit to go. Bilbo didn’t leave immediately. Not just yet.

“Why.. Look at you.. You were fine before me. You were alright. I did this to you. Why did you even decide to help me?” A silent drop cleared a path on the dirt covering Bilbo’s cheek.

“No.” Thorin choked, then coughed a little. “You.. You’re the last good thing.”

“No I’m not..” The hobbit choked back a sob as he said it but made the valiant effort to not cry.

“You really are. My father once said.. He said there are things that are precious in life. Before you, I just survived. I once knew what he meant, when I still had Rosa. But after that.. I forgot. I forgot why I survived. You’re what reminded me.” 

Bilbo sobbed openly at that and Thorin kissed him again.

“I won’t lose you.” He told the hobbit, then made himself push Bilbo off. “So go. Go now. I will follow.”

Bilbo looked behind him without getting up. The man was waiting impatiently and he cocked an eyebrow at Bilbo. Bilbo nodded to him, the team that waited ready to grab him any moment stood down. So Bilbo turned back to Thorin.

“You better not be lying to me.” He said.

Thorin smiled and shook his head. Then Bilbo was gone.

\--

Thorin didn’t watch as the men opened the gates and lead Bilbo inside. The last member of the security team lingered by Thorin’s side for a moment. Thorin ignored the woman as he sat there, with his back to the car and closed his eyes. After a while the woman must have decided that his wound was grievous enough that she didn’t need to put a bullet in his head, and so she left too, leaving Thorin to die alone. And when the gates rolled shut after her, the light too went out and darkness settled.

Thorin couldn’t feel his legs or arms now, but he didn’t bother trying to move them. There was no point. Blood oozing from his back was forming a small puddle around him, looking like a black blotch in the dark. He turned his gaze away from it and toward the tree line beyond the one or two abandoned cars in the parking lot. There were no more walkers, or the team of men had put them down, he didn’t know but it was a mercy. 

He thought of Rosa. Of his father. He thought of the first boy he had killed. Then he thought of Bilbo.

A tiny kitten poked its head out from under one of the cars, then sniffed around a dead walker for a bit. It was very dangerous. Thorin smiled, breathed out and didn’t breathe in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moZExve-AeQ
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> If you know what the song is about, feel free to ignore. This was the melody going through my head as I wrote the ending. I just thought I'd share.  
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> 
> Thank you all very much for reading. And congratulations all around for enduring this far. I hope no one missed the warnings and got a nasty surprise. Now I'll run off to read some fluffy fix-it fics myself.


End file.
